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PSYCHOLOGY 
AND THE TEACHER 



PSYCHOLOGY 
AND THE TEACHER 



BY 
HUGO MUNSTERBERG 

PBOFKSSOB OF PSYCHOLOGY AT 
HAKVAED UNIVERSITY 




NEW YORK AND LONDON 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

1909 






VV> 



Copyright, 1909, by 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 



Published October, 1909 



24869$ 



TO 

GEORGE HERBERT PALMER 
IN GRATITUDE 



PREFACE 



This book hopes to be a source of information for the 
teacher. It aims to present the essentials of all which 
modern psychology may offer to the school. Yet this is 
only one side of its task. 

Many signs indicate that a turn in the road of educa- 
tional progress is near. Important changes seem unavoid- 
able. A pedagogical unrest has set in. It is a time in 
which the fundamental principles and methods must be 
discussed with thoroughness and without prejudice. 

Hence it is not sufficient simply to report the psycho- 
logical facts, but more important to examine carefully all 
the connections between psychology and education. The 
lack of clearness in this relation has been one of the most 
damaging sources of confusion in recent years. 

Such an inquiry quickly leads to deeper problems. We 
must examine the purposes of teaching, and these again in 
reference to the ideals of life. In this way the book aims 
to be far more than a text-book of specialistic knowledge. 
It is a book of idealism and reform, aiming toward a bet- 
ter school and a higher valuation of the teacher's calling. 

This book on psychology and educatit)n is, in a way, a 
continuation of my recent volumes, "On the Witness 
Stand " and " Psychotherapy," the one discussing the re- 
lation of psychology to law, the other to medicine. All 

vii 



PEEFACE 

three deal with the practical value of modern laboratory 
psychology for the daily life. They represent not the only, 
but the three most important aspects of applied psychology. 
There will be some who will be proud to discover that 
this book contradicts earlier utterances of mine. They 
will point triumphantly to some much-discussed essays in 
which I earnestly warned against the use of psychology 
in the schoolroom. But such friends are mistaken. More 
than ten years ago I did warn against a hasty application 
of psychology before the psychologists were ready to offer 
. material which is adjusted to the needs of the teacher. 
I demanded special psychological studies and experiments 
in the service of education. Just this demand has been 
happily fulfilled in the last decade, and therefore the time 
for a more intimate contact between the laboratory and 
the school seems to me to have come. 

Moreover, even at the time when I urged precaution, 
I certainly was not unaware of the important service which 
psychology may offer to the teacher. In my book on 
methods of psychology, several years before those warning 
essays, I wrote that every teacher of the future must build 
up his work on psychology. Thus I have never changed 
my opinion and have not gone through any pedagogical 
conversion. But I do hope that my previous expressions 
of hesitation may suggest to the teachers a certain confi- 
dence in the character of my discussion. The problems 
of the school demand conservative treatment. 

The discussion in the first part of the book necessarily 
sometimes takes a philosophical turn. There are not a few 
teachers who have an incurable dislike for such abstract 
problems. They may omit chapters four to eight. On the 
other hand, to the readers who feel the life importance of 
these fundamental questions and who are anxious to follow 

viii 



PREFACE 

the inquiry further, I venture to suggest a quiet study of 
my larger volume, " The Eternal Values.'^ Those who 
wish to enter more fully into the empirical psychological 
material will have to turn to the books of Stanley Hall, 
Judd, Baldwin, James, Sully, Thorndike, Home, Whip- 
ple, etc., but above all to the widely scattered publications 
of the psychological laboratories. Those who master the 
German will find an abundance of material and sugges- 
tion in the experimental studies of Lay, Meumann, Stern, 
Kraepelin, Liehen, Brahn, etc., and the various magazines 
for educational psychology. 



Hugo Munsterberg. 



Harvard University, 

September 1, 1909. 



CONTENTS 



ETHICAL PART 

THE AIMS OF THE TEACHER 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. — The Conflict in Modern Pedagogy ... 3 

II. — Facts and Purposes in 'Education ... 10 

III. — The Seeking of Aims 21 

IV. — The Aspect of Science 27 

V. — Ethics and the World of Purposes . . 34 

VI. — The Ethics of Pleasure Seeking ... 41 

VII. — The True Values of Life 47 

VIII. — The Human Ideals 54 

IX. — The Aims of Education 64 

X. — The Personal Factor 71 



PSYCHOLOGICAL PART 

THE mind of the PUPIL 

XI. — The Objections to Educational Psychology 81 

XII. — The Application of Psychology .... 90 

XIII. — Mind and Brain 99 

XIV. — The Biological Aspect 112 

XV. — Apperception 128 

XVI.— Memory 137 

XVII. — Association 148 

XVIII. — Attention 157 

XIX. — Imitation and Suggestion 172 

XX. — Will and Habit 183 

XXI.— Feeling 196 

XXII. — Individual Differences 212 

xi 



I 



CONTENTS 



EDUCATIONAL PART 



THE WORK OF THE SCHOOL 
CHAPTER 

XXIII. — School Instruction . 
XXIV. — School Inspiration . 
XXV. — The School Curriculum 
XXVI. — The Elementary Studies 
XXVII. — The Higher Studies 
XXVIII. — The School Organization 
XXIX. — The Teacher 



233 
244 
253 
271 

286 
304 
316 



ETHICAL PART 
THE AIMS OF TEACHING 



i 



CHAPTER I 

THE CONFLICT IN MODERN PEDAGOGY 



As a teacher I intend to speak to teachers about the 
teachers' aim and work and mission, and about the means, 
especially the psychological means, which serve theh* noble 
ends. The whole world of educational tasks lies before us, 
and our survey will turn in many directions. We are to 
consider the child and the community, the quiet home and 
the whirl of life; we are to discuss the courses of study 
and the methods of the school, the values of the various 
subjects, and the help to be gained from psychological 
experiments; we are to think about play and discipline, 
work and fatigue, about childhood and adolescence, about 
the intellect and character, the attention and the ideas, the 
emotions and the will of boys and girls — but the teachers 
themselves will remain the center of all for us. 

We shall not forget that the teachers are of many types : 
the primary school and the high school teacher, the teacher 
young and old, inexperienced and overexperienced ; the 
half-trained girl who teaches for a few seasons just be- 
cause she is tired of home, and the university graduate 
who devotes his life to the profession as the most ideal of 
all callings; the teacher in the little valley far from the 
rush of the world, and the teacher in the turmoil of the 
metropolis; the optimistic teacher and the pessimistic — 
and yet they have all embarked together. Perhaps the 

3 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

best which they have to know is common to all of them. 
What really separates them into two classes — the true cabin 
passenger of the ship and the mere steerage — is the one 
fundamental difference : whether they have a high ideal of 
their duty as teachers or are satisfied with a low one; 
whether they believe in the noble mission of the teacher 
and serve it with the pride of the inspired soul or merely 
go through the tricks and are just " teaching " to earn a 
salary with the smallest effort until the vacation frees them 
from drudgery. 

Whoever speaks about the teacher's work ought to speak 
clearly and simply. Vagueness is the habitual and yet 
unpardonable sin of pedagogical literature, and lack of 
simplicity too often hides lack of straightforwardness. 
Sound truth, well understood, is always simple and clear. 
But to be simple must not mean to be trivial, and to make 
things clear must not mean to cheapen them. Education 
is a serious matter and demands serious effort from all 
those who want to master its problems. To talk to teachers 
in a way that allows them to remain passive listeners with- 
out effort or thought on their own part means, indeed, to 
cheapen and to lower the level of the task. We aim to 
be clear, but we do not wish the teacher ever to forget 
that we are discussing a difficult and complex question, 
and that it is not worth while to discuss it at all if our 
discourse becomes a monologue; the whole mind of the 
reader must be ready to respond in self-activity. If the 
teachers did not forget that so easily they would not so 
often become the prey of pedagogical fads and fancies, 
advocated with empty arguments on one day and forgotten 
with indecent haste the next. 

We have no new fad to defend and no pet theory to 
offer. We have no patent medicine for all educational 

4 



THE CONFLICT m MODERN" PEDAGOGY 

blundering. We are not hustling with the " yellow '' psy- 
chologists, nor do we worship at the bygone shrines of 
the " Herbartians " — we have no schemes at all for " get- 
ting rich quick " in educational wisdom. We feel only 
the deep conviction that no one deserves to be a teacher 
who does not know that the teacher's mission is a sacred 
one. And to devote one's life to a great mission full of 
responsibilities and of difficulties certainly demands most 
serious thought. No effort ought to be spared, no helpful 
study ought to be neglected, no careless go-as-you-please 
method ought to be excused. The whole community has 
felt this instinctively. It is no longer willing to suffer 
the reckless ignorance of the haphazard teacher. Louder 
and louder arises the cry: The teacher must understand 
the material with which he works; must know the mind 
and body of the pupil and the social conditions under which 
he lives ; must know psychology and sociology and physiol- 
ogy ; must go through child study and the study of adoles- 
cence — in short, must study as thoroughly as possible the 
mental and physical facts, their working and their laws. 

And yet — and yet — paradise seems no nearer. Big vol- 
umes on psychology, its principles and its laws, stand on 
the shelves of many teachers to-day, and the natural sci- 
ence of childhood and adolescence seems wonderfully at 
their command, and yet a pedagogical unrest pervades the 
whole social community. The pile of interesting facts 
which the sciences heap up for the teacher's use grows 
larger and larger, but the teacher seems to stare at it with 
growing hopelessness. He blames himself and ever makes 
new efforts to master the facts ; yet he cannot help feeling 
that they do not tell him what he ought to do. Perhaps he 
feels more erudite, but he does not feel wiser. He knows 
so many things that his own teachers did not dream of ; and 
8 5 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

the only thing he does not know is what the use of all that 
knowledge can be. A wide open sea is suddenly before 
him, but he feels that he has no compass on board and 
that no one has told him in what direction land lies or 
how the next harbor can be reached. 

We ought not, indeed, to deceive ourselves. The mere 
study of psychological facts, of the child's nature and the 
pupil's biology has too often been followed by sad disap- 
pointment. The old naivete has gone; to be sure, it was 
the naivete of ignorance, and yet there was a safer feeling 
of guidance than in the new knowledge, which seems in- 
sufficient and discouraging. Wider and wider circles, with- 
in and without the school, feel to-day as if an inner 
conflict had arisen, destroying the unity of the work and 
thus paralyzing the best efforts ; as if there must be some- 
thing wrong in the new doctrine which tells the teacher 
that the new education ought to get its aim and guidance 
from the study of the child's nature. 

Such a conflict exists; there is, indeed, something 
wrong. And while not a single step ought to be taken 
backward, and while not a single fact ought to be un- 
learned and not a single effort of this new movement 
discouraged, yet real progress will never result until the 
wrong is undone and the conflict which lies below is 
clearly understood by everyone. To put it in a nutshell, 
the older times which ignored the scientific knowledge 
of facts were, for that reason, slow and clumsy in moving 
toward their educational goal; but, after all, they had a 
goal; they had purposes and ideals which were set before 
them by their interests and their traditions, by their moral- 
ities and their beliefs. The new times master the facts 
and would be splendidly prepared to reach the goal, but 
they deceive themselves with the idea that such a goal can 

6 



THE CONFLICT IN MODEKN PEDAGOGY 

itself be set by the study of facts. They do not see that 
no knowledge of facts in the world can ever tell ns what 
we ought to do, that no science can teach us what our aim 
and our duty, our purpose and our ideal must be. We 
want to rely on facts alone and are blind to the funda- 
mental fact that facts have value only in the service of 
final ends which the will must create and which no knowl- 
edge supplies. Lost are the good old times which were 
sure of their ends but did not know the means of reaching 
them ; and there is upon us the new order, which supplies 
us with plenty of means but forgets that means are never 
substitutes for an end. This is the great conflict which is 
instinctively felt. We do not want to go back to the old 
ignorance which neglected the facts, and yet we do not 
find a real guidance in the new knowledge, because through 
its mere trust in facts it can never come to a real aim and 
purpose. 

There is only one way to remove this conflict. No mere 
arbitration in favor of the one or the other side can help 
us. The belief in ends without the knowledge of the 
necessary means must be just as unsatisfactory to us as the 
mere knowledge of possible means without clear insight 
and full belief in valuable aims and ideals. Neither one 
can be the demand of the morrow. 

Nor can a cheap compromise be in question. It surely 
would not do to recommend the cramming of some psy- 
chological laws, and then simply to add an appendix of 
moral appeals. Nor would it be better to warm over the 
old traditional phrases of educational ideals and stuff them 
with fragments of sociology and child study. What is 
needed is a really organic union of the aims and the means, 
a true synthesis; but no one ought to believe that such 
an ultimate unity can be reached through the arguments 

7 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

of popular discussion. Common sense alone cannot really 
settle such a dispute, for the common sense of to-day is 
and always has been merely the echo of the philosophical 
thoughts of yesterday. What the best thinkers of one 
generation elaborate by hard work appears to the next 
century as the common-sense opinion which is at once ap- 
plicable to the momentous problems of life. No; what 
previous generations thought cannot help us in the diffi- 
culties which are born with our own time. If we want to 
see clearly and to find the full truth, we have neither 
the right to evade the task by a one-sided preference or 
by a superficial compromise nor to settle it by the triviali- 
ties of traditional common sense; we must seriously think 
on our own account ; yes, we must philosophize in the new 
spirit of our time. 

Philosophize! He who feels the pulse of throbbing 
life and longs for the useful, solid, real facts which knowl- 
edge can supply so that he may work and fight and win — 
he does not want to philosophize! He feels a repelling 
deadness in the word philosophy; it suggests to him vague, 
empty generalities, lifeless conceptions, outworn theories — 
spider webs which science has brushed away. Philosophize ! 
What can it profij: us to fly to metaphysical regions if, 
after all, no one can know the last secrets of the beyond? 
Does not religion satisfy our belief? Our thought and 
study at least ought to belong to solid reality. We hear 
all this a thousand times and yet it is the most absurd 
and the most harmful prejudice, brought about by a com- 
plete failure to see the eternal youth of philosophy. No 
effort of thought comes nearer to real life, no study is 
nearer the immediate experience, no knowledge more valu- 
able in our practical endeavors. It is just he who seeks 
life instead of abstract specters who must turn to philoso- 

8 



THE COISTFLICT IN MODERN PEDAGOGY 

phy; and, whether we like the fact or not, it remains a 
fact that philosophy alone can lead to the vital problems 
which lie before us and before everyone who seeks the 
aims and means of education. Philosophy is the only 
entrance gate to pedagogical studies. 

It cannot be otherwise. Some one may say — and it is 
just that which ignorance always repeats: No, let us omit 
all philosophical inquiry and let us begin at once with the 
facts. But must we not first ask : What facts ? Why do 
you wish to select just these facts? Why are they im- 
portant to you? Well, they serve certain purposes and 
help us to reach certain ends. But why do you care for 
just these purposes and why do 5^ou prefer these ends to 
others ? And if we seek the answer to such first questions, 
if we study the ultimate value and the significance of 
things, we are already in the midst of philosophy. 

The first part of our inquiry must therefore be philo- 
sophical in its temper. That part of philosophy which deals 
with the aims of human actions is ethics; our first dis- 
cussion thus 'lies in the field of ethics. Only when we 
know the ends at which we are to aim can we turn to the 
ways which lead thereto and study the special psychical 
means. Our second part must therefore be psychological. 
The application of the means to the end leads finally to 
the practical questions of actual school life; this gives us 
the third, the pedagogical part. And now we turn to the 
ethical problem. 



CHAPTER II 

FACTS AND PURPOSES IN EDUCATION 

We said that it must be our first task to see clearly 
the difference between means and aims, between facts and 
purposes. We must recognize and select the aims of edu- 
cation before we can apply the psychological facts in their 
service. The need of this separation may become more 
evident if we point at first to a few illustrations. They 
may indicate by experiences of daily routine how inade- 
quate the facts are to show us the best goals, and how 
easily commendable movements may cheapen their causes 
by fallacious arguments which confuse facts and purposes. 
The student of the child, for instance, knows an abundance 
of facts with reference to imitation. No one doubts that 
imitation plays a decisive role in the development of every 
young mind, hence it is rightly a favorite topic of the 
modern psychologist. He tries, therefore, to analyze the 
imitative process; he seeks its elements and studies upon 
what factors it is dependent, how its working can be im- 
proved and strengthened, or how its influence may be 
suppressed. If all the means of modern psychology are 
conscientiously used, we may finally come to feel that we 
know all the facts involved in imitation; but can that 
possibly include also a knowledge of what the child ought 
to imitate? Can any study of imitation as a psychical 
process give the teacher the slightest hint as to what models 

10 



FACTS AXD PUEPOSES IN EDUCATION 

for imitation ought to be put before the mind of the 
pupil? Is it more valuable to imitate the hero or the 
scholar or the martyr or the athlete or the captain of 
industry? Is it more valuable to imitate unscrupulous 
success or humble honesty, the life of self-denial or the 
life of glory? Some model for the imitation of the boys 
must be in the soul of every teacher — can the psychology 
or physiology or sociology of imitation decide which model 
is the right one? To ask the question means to answer 
it in the negative. It would be absurd to expect it; we 
might just as well expect that the muscle physiology of 
our movements in walking could advise us as to the best 
promenade to take. Whether the boy is to imitate, and 
thus to choose as his ideal the prize fighter or the mil- 
lionaire or the faithful school-teacher must be determined 
by considerations which lie entirely apart from the study 
of the laws of imitation. Much good psychology too often 
supports quite pitiable suggestions for pedagogical models, 
and the ambiguity remains unnoticed as long as the psy- 
chological facts seem correct. 

Subtler and more misleading is the confusion of facts 
and purposes in the case of the memory functions. In 
every classroom memorizing plays an essential role, and 
therefore no teacher can neglect the mechanism of the 
pupil's mind which serves the retention of the memory 
material. He has no right to set his pupils tasks of learn- 
ing which go beyond the psychical possibilities of the 
child. The development of memory with years, the in- 
dividual differences of the learning capacity, the whole 
structure of the process, will accordingly be of deep in- 
terest to the intelligent teacher. He will also gladly con- 
sult the psychological books as to the conditions under 
which " learning by heart " is expedited, or under which 

11 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHEE 

the memorized material is more correctly reproduced. He 
will find out what influences make the memory more re- 
ceptive or the time of exact recollection longer. In short, 
he. will study the facts which the psychologist knows not 
only from careful observation, but from systematic experi- 
ments in the psychological laboratory. 

But he will have to be very careful if he really wants 
to separate the facts from the valuations. Too easily will 
he slip from the one to the other. Without noticing it 
himself, he will smuggle judgments and purposes into his 
descriptions, and as soon as he has given them ever so 
little a foothold, he will be unable to resist the influence 
of any pet prejudices. Of course, if we should say, These 
are the laws of memory, therefore the pupil ought to learn 
poems by Longfellow but not poems by Whittier ; or. These 
are the conditions for quick and exact learning by heart, 
therefore the class ought to memorize the dates of Amer- 
ican history but not those of English history, everyone 
would see the absurdity at once. Everyone would object 
that the structure of memory cannot prescribe what we 
ought to use it for any more than the knowledge of how 
a typewriting machine works can tell us what we ought 
to write with it. Yet all this strikes us as absurd only 
because the fallacy is so clumsy. As soon as the same prin- 
ciple is applied in a subtler way, it goes unnoticed. We 
must not forget that we are in the midst of such fallacies, 
even when we speak of an improvement of memory as if 
that were a purely psychological problem. The psycholo- 
gist as such cannot know an improvement of mental facul- 
ties, because such a term implies, of course, that one mode 
of behavior of the mind is better and more valuable than 
another; and it is just that which can never be a matter 
of fact. 

12 



FACTS AND PURPOSES IN EDUCATION 

You may reply that it seems a matter of common 
agreement that the brilliant mind of a genius is better than 
that of a stupid fellow, or that a mind which can connect 
many thoughts is more valuable than one which can hold 
merely a small number. You may say that a memory 
which can reproduce the memorized material after a long 
time is preferable to the one which forgets quickly, and 
thus that we have a right to take all this for granted and 
speak of improvement. Well, that may perhaps be true 
in this case, but the point is that we ought to see clearly 
that such a judgment is really involved, however common 
and undisputed it may be. If we do not see the principle, 
if we carelessly take for granted that the preference is 
itself given by the facts, then we have no power to resist 
when the next judgment which is slipped in is not at all 
common, and perhaps most disputable. And where does 
the common agreement that we can take for granted really 
begin and end? That the brilliant mind of the genius is 
preferable to that of his stupid fellow is surely a common 
decision, but if we look more sharply at the claim, it be- 
comes clear that the words involve a begging of the ques- 
tion. Brilliancy and stupidity and genius are not really 
terms which describe only ; already they contain an attitude 
of preference or disfavor. From the standpoint of facts 
we know a certain lack of ideas or slowness of association 
or inability of connection, and so on, but as soon as we 
designate all that as stupidity, we have gone beyond the 
facts and have asserted that this combination of mental 
qualities ought to be rejected as less desirable. We may 
have a right to do so, but we cannot overlook the fact that 
we have already settled the question of preference in call- 
ing one mind stupid and the other brilliant. And if, 
finally, a skeptic steps in and perhaps maintains that the 

13 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

stupid people are often more honest or more religious than 
the brilliant ones, and that from his point of view of life 
the modest intellect is therefore preferable to the shining 
one, we see again that we are moving in a sphere of judg- 
ments, preferences, convictions, ideals, and that all this is 
aside from questions of fact. 

Still more flimsy is the pretense of common agreement 
when we say that the mind which holds many thoughts 
is better than the one which holds few, or that the memory 
which recollects after a long interval is better than the 
one which soon forgets. That preference may be entirely 
justified if we have certain definite purposes before us, 
but we might as well have different purposes and arrive 
then at a different valuation. For certain ends it might be 
better to have a mind which concentrates itself on a few 
ideas without the ambition and power to master a large 
number of ideas; the narrow and concentrated mind, with 
its enthusiastic onesidedness, may be much more effective 
for many ends than the versatile mind with its distracting 
richness ; and the memory which is overburdened with dead 
stuff simply because it has a strong power of recollection 
may be, for certain ends and purposes in life, much less 
desirable than the memory which does not retain the in- 
significant, but continually sifts its matter and holds only 
the really important. 

And, even if there were agreement in such preferences, 
where is the demarcation line between the valuations that 
are to be taken for granted and those that demand especial 
examination? Is a good memory for printed words better 
than a good memory for the experiences of practical life, 
and ought we to cultivate the one at the expense of the 
other? There might be not a little difference of opinion, 
and in such a dilemma psychology cannot help. And it is 

14 



FACTS AND PUBPOSES IN EDUCATION 

only another turn of the same thought if we say, that 
because certain methods of learning make learning easy, 
therefore we ought to apply such methods, or because cer- 
tain material is quickly learned, therefore such material 
is especially fit for the pupil. Who has told us that easy 
learning is to be our goal ? Have we an inborn knowledge 
that we are intended to learn without especial effort ? Are 
we sure that it is our mission to master by memory the 
greatest possible amount of material, and that the quickest 
method of cramming is the ideal. Some one might say 
that, on the contrary, the mere quantity of learning does 
not count at all ; that to carry a large bag of dead memory 
stuff on the shoulders rather than a small one does not 
make one more of a man. Everything depends on the 
power to master the interplay of ideas, and for this it 
may be more important to become trained through the 
learning of difficult material. This may be a wrong view 
of our duties, but in any case we have to settle such prob- 
lems and cannot silently take for granted that only one 
method is right. The quickest way to learn French may 
be the poorest and least educative one for purposes of life, 
as a whole, however obvious it may appear that quick, 
easy acquisition is to be desired. 

Still more usual and still more harmful than in the 
memory problem is the general pedagogical confusion of 
" is " and " ought " in the question of attention. No set 
of psychological facts has been more sedulously courted 
by the pedagogues. To attention in the wider sense of the 
word belongs everything under the label " appercep- 
tion/' of which we hear and see so much, and with it 
goes the whole group of problems which refer to " inter- 
est." If all side issues are ignored, the leading train of 
thought remains as follows: Psychology shows that the 

15 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

interesting thing most easily awakes and holds our atten- 
tion; attention is necessary for the pupil's work; there- 
fore we ought by all means to prefer the interesting thing. 
And yet this is not the reasoning of logical thought, but 
the trick of the logical prestidigitator. A hundred high- 
sounding arguments may hide this naked confusion, but 
confusion it remains, and it has made havoc of sober edu- 
cation as has no other pedagogical fantasy. 

Of course psychology can certainly show that the in- 
teresting thing holds the attention, or rather it need not 
show what is already involved in the definition; we call 
interesting just that which is the object of our involun- 
tary attention. Whatever attracts the attention without 
any especial effort of will is interesting to us — from the 
loud and glaring spectacle on the lower level up to the 
enchanting work of art on the higher level, from the ex- 
citement of our senses up to the excitement of our richest 
emotions. To keep children, the young ones and the adult 
ones, quiet with ease there is, indeed, no simpler way than 
to occupy them with material that is in its nature attract- 
ive and interesting — it stops the crying of the baby and 
the social unrest of the masses. But where is the bridge 
that leads from such obvious facts to the daring assump- 
tion of judgment that education ought to prefer the at- 
tractive and to brush aside all that is uninteresting ? Who 
has the right to determine that the child ought to do just 
what titillates his taste and attracts his fancy? It may 
well be possible to plan an eight years' school course or a 
twenty years' professional course or a fifty years' life course 
— in which everything is arranged according to the natural 
interest and no effort will be needed to keep attention afire. 
But is that really an ideal to be fought for? May it not 
be that the most important aim of education is just the 

16 



FACTS AXD PURPOSES IX EDUCATION 

power of overcoming the temptations of mere personal 
interest, the power to serve purposes which demand effort 
of will and discipline of attention? 

Such doubt may be unwise, such a policy may be old- 
fashioned, but at least such a counterfancy is possible, and 
shows that the conflict of the various views must be ex- 
amined. It is inexcusably reckless simply to take any of 
the possible conclusions for granted, and, without discus- 
sion, to proclaim that the child ought to study that which 
of itself holds the child's attention most easily. If we 
allow such a dogma to go unchallenged we cannot be sur- 
prised if the kindergarten method, which may be excellent 
in the kindergarten, creeps up through the whole school 
life, with results the excellence of which surely cannot be 
taken for granted. Some will certainly be enthusiastic 
over the immediate results. All drudgery is thenceforth 
removed from the schoolroom ; the darlings have a splendid 
time; their whole nature can now develop in accordance 
with their own instincts; life has become joy again, and, 
without friction, everyone can pick up a lot of fascinating 
things to talk about. But there are others who take quite 
a different view. • 

They say — we do not ask whether they are petty and 
shortsighted or whether they are right — they say, The lack 
of discipline at the very beginning of intellectual growth 
is an educational sin. The school methods which appeal 
always to the natural desires and the involuntary attention 
and interest do not train the pupil in overcoming desires 
and in controlling attention; they plead instead of com- 
manding; they teach one to follow the path of least re- 
sistance instead of the path of duty and the ideal. The 
result is a flabby inefficiency, a loose vagueness and inac- 
curacy, an acquaintance with a hundred things and a mas- 

17 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHEK 

tery of none. Public life has to suffer for it; a com- 
munity which has not had a rigid mental discipline at 
home and at school must always remain the plaything of 
its lower instincts. Such a community will continue to 
follow without check its untrained impulses; it will prefer 
the yellow newspaper of big headlines to the serious paper 
which appeals to sober thought; it will prefer, on the 
stage of the theater and on the stage of life, the vulgar 
vaudeville and the cheap melodrama to the refined and 
the noble play; it will be impressed by glaring outer suc- 
cess and by showy size, by quantity instead of quality and 
value; it will be swept by every passion of the crowd, 
applauding mediocrities, enthusiastic for everyone who 
poses for the uncritical, a quick victim to every fad and 
I fancy, unwilling to take the trouble of resisting public 
I corruption and laxity of law. And yet can there be any 
\ doubt that it is just a political democracy which ought to 
\ be protected against such an inner foe? 

Those who speak so disrespectfully of the present-day 
moods of pedagogy may be shortsighted and in the wrong, 
but then they must be refuted. Simply to take it as cer- 
tain that the other side is right will not do, and again 
the mere facts cannot help us. The mental facts cannot 
decide whether we ought to use the mental powers for 
enjoyment or for effort; whether we ought to follow in- 
terest or ought to develop the spirit of duty; whether we 
ought to select what we attend to or attend to what we 
select. It is the old story again : the facts can never give 
the "ought." 

We have singled out the psychology of imitation, of 
memory, of attention, of interest; and yet the same thing 
is true of every other mental function, for the belief that 
the mere facts yield an aim has often been based as well 

18 



FACTS AXD PUEPOSES IN EDUCATION 

on the psychology of emotion, of volition, of instinct, of 
imagination, of judgment, and the result is everywhere a 
pedagogical uncertainty and unrest. It is this confusion 
which lies at the bottom of most debates on educational 
methods. It is evident that there must be dispute about 
the means as long as it is not settled what the ends ought 
to be, or, rather, as long as we ignore the question of 
aims as an independent question having the right of prece- 
dence. To quote a typical case from among a hundred 
daily occurrences. In a large city the superintendent and 
the principal of a high school disagreed ; the former thought 
that the school marks were too low, the latter objected to 
higher marking. Both sides sought to convince the public 
by appeals to psychological laws. The one party said: It 
is a well-known psychological fact that low marking dis- 
courages the boys; if the average boy feels that he cannot 
reach the highest marks, he gives up the fight and becomes 
careless. The other party said: It is a well-known psy- 
chological fact that high marks eliminate all distinctions; 
if everyone can reach the highest premiums, the sense of 
discrimination is spoiled and the ambitions of the best 
are ruined. 

As the two parties came to two opposed demands from 
these two psychological principles, it seemed that one of 
the two mental observations must be wrong, but that is not 
at all the fact. Both principles are right, and in them- 
selves not in the least contradictory; they would not and 
could not invite any quarrel. The trouble came only from 
the illusion that such principles are able to give us any 
precepts. Such observations are helpful after we have set- 
tled what our aim ought to be, but they cannot say any- 
thing about the jjm. The two parties evidently had oppo- 
site purposes in mind. The one considered as the end to 

19 



PSYCHOLOGY A:N"D THE TEACHER 

be sought above all the strongest possible development of 
the best pupils; the other preferred to aim at a fair devel- 
opment of the largest possible number of pupils. Each 
of these aims has, of course, its characteristic advantages. 
As soon as we have chosen one of these two goals, we shall 
make use of those mental facts which are serviceable in at- 
taining it, but the facts cannot help us in choosing. Whether 
we ought to work for the best or for the many can never 
be a question of existing facts. No fact can ever help us 
to decide a question so vital for society, and the true issue 
is carelessly obscured by bringing into the foreground a 
pseudo-conflict of psychological observations. Who would 
be foolish enough to consult the time-table in order to 
decide whether to travel south or north? We all decide 
first what end we want to reach_, and afterwards we look 
for the means by which the end may be most quickly and 
most safely attained. Education, too, must know its ends 
and aims and ideals before it can profit from the study 
of the scientific facts in psychical and social life. Educa- 
tion, too, must be sure of its ends before it can select the 
facts which are serviceable. 



CHAPTER III 



THE SEEKING OF AIMS 



Now we know where to begin. First of all we need an 
answer to the fundamental question : What are the aims of 
education? What ought the teachers' work to produce in 
the boys and girls who are intrusted to their influence? 
What is the purpose for which the child must go to school ? 
Whatever the teacher must achieve, evidently must be sub- 
ordinated to these ends. Thus we must secure clearness 
as to the pedagogical ends. 

The systematic inquiry into these ends belongs to peda- 
gogy. But this part of pedagogy cannot be isolated. It is 
part of a larger inquiry. Pedagogy asks only : What is the 
purpose for which the child is sent to school? But how 
can we understand this particular purpose if we separate 
it from the larger question: What are the purposes of 
human life? What are* the aims of every human being? 
What ends are worth while ? lJN"o one doubts that education 
is only a preparation for life. However delightful the 
years of the school time may be, their real meaning evi- 
dently lies in the preparation for life as a whole.^ The 
understanding of the purposes of education therefore pre- 
supposes an insight into the valuable purposes of life in 
general. Such a study of what is a valuable purpose of 
life is ethics. And with this in view we insisted that we 
can ultimately come to a decision concerning the purpose 
3 21 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

of education in no other way than by turning to ethics. 
Pedagogy itself becomes thereby a part of ethical inquiry. 
We must know what makes life valuable in order to find 
out where we ought to lead the child^ so that he may be 
prepared for a valuable life. 

No chance prejudice, no traditional belief, no party 
creed, not even common sense can give us a thoroughgoing 
answer. But we went still further and insisted that no 
mere study of facts, such as child study or psychology, can 
give US an answer to our ethical problem either. We 
showed the meaning of this claim by a few practical illus- 
trations, but these alone, of course, do not prove its cor- 
rectness. Such a claim demands careful examination. It 
may be arbitrary ;Ve have no right to accept it untested. 
Our own clear thinking must lead us forward. Hence, we 
want to inquire carefully whether the study of any facts 
can tell us what man ought to aim at, and accordingly 
where the child ought to be led. 

The usual view is that we can find the ends and aims 
of a valuable life, and then the ends and aims of education, 
by studying the facts of nature, of mind, of society. 
Biolog}^, psychology, and sociology seem to furnish the data 
from which we may deduce the true aims of education. On 
the other hand, we have insisted that no science of facts can 
show us any aims and purposes; no science of facts can 
ever tell us what we ought to do. At the first hearing this 
sounds absurd. Do we not continually study facts in the 
interest of our practical endeavors? The engineer studies 
facts of physics and chemistry to find out how the manu- 
facturing or mining plant ought to be built. Who shall 
dare to discourage the teacher from studying in the same 
way the facts of the child's development and surrounding, 
in order to make sure how the child ought to be treated? 

22 



THE SEEKING OF AIMS 

But let us distinguish. Does the engineer really learn 
from the facts of natural science what end he ought to 
pursue ? Not at all ! The sciences teach him exactly this : 
if you want to reach this end, you must consider these and 
similar facts and these and similar laws — but whether you 
really care for this or for the opposite is your own busi- 
ness, and that you must settle beforehand. And you must 
settle it from motives which lie outside the system of your 
so-called facts. 

The bridge builder, for instance, has learned his physics 
and thus knows all the laws needed to calculate the struc- 
ture of a bridge, if the two banks of the river are to be 
connected at this spot. But no physical law can teach him 
that a bridge ought to be built over the river at this point. 
He knows that a cantilever or a suspension bridge is 
the right structure in case this location is selected, but in 
the selection economic purposes must decide. Perhaps the 
bridge is to be near a certain town or near a railway sta- 
tion, where it is desirable for purposes of trade and com- 
merce — and that is not a question of ph3'sics. In the same 
way the geologists may show from all their knowledge that 
a tunnel between England and France is feasible, and the 
engineers may work out the finest possible plans — the facts 
of nature cannot help in the decision whether it is wise 
for England to give up its proud isolation and to allow 
a tunnel to pierce the natural barriers of the island. In 
reality the sciences never teach the engineer what he ought 
to do, that is, what ends he ought to strive for, but only 
what means are serviceable for certain ends. Economics, 
and not physics, decides as to the bridge ; politics, and not 
geology, decides as to the tunnel, and ethics, not psychol- 
ogy, must decide the ends to which education has to lead 
the child, however often superficial educators may believe 

23 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

that in their field the selection of the end is a matter of 
course and needs no previous investigation. 

And it cannot be otherwise; a very simple considera- 
tion can convince us that science would destroy itself if 
it made any undue pretensions here. To decide in favor 
of an end, an aim, a purpose, means to declare that this 
one end is better than another end, that this aim is more 
valuable than another aim, that this purpose is more worthy 
of our will than another purpose. But if there is anything 
included in the conception of science itself, it is the strict 
recognition that in the world of scientific facts nothing is 
good or bad, nothing valuable or valueless, nothing worthy 
or unworthy : about a fact of science we can say only that 
it exists. 

To be sure, a loose way of speech in scientific discus- 
sions often allows us to forget that this is so. No scientist 
would hesitate to speak, for instance, of development; the 
development of the earth, of the world of animals and 
plants, or of the single individual stands fairly in the center 
of the facts of science. And yet, it is an illusion that the 
scientist really finds development among his naturalistic 
facts as such. Rather, by the use of that word he smug- 
gles a conception into his own field, which is certainly con- 
venient for him, but which is ultimately brought in from 
the other domains. Development and progress are given 
when something worse is changed into something better. 
But who gives the geologist the right to say that the earth 
in a glowing liquid state was worse than the earth with a 
solid cooled-off crust? And who gives the biologist the 
right to maintain that the invertebrates are worse than 
the vertebrates, or the grown-up organism better than the 
foetus ? 

All that the naturalist really finds is that a simpler 

24 



THE SEEKING OF AIMS 

state is transformed into a more complex state, or a loosely 
connected material into an organized system. He leaves his 
real ground when he asserts that the complex is better than 
the simple. Of course the naturalist will tell you that 
everyone understands what he means by it ; he wants to say 
that the change, which he calls development or progress, 
is the change which leads the earth to becoming the domi- 
cile of life, which leads living being up to man, and man 
up to effectiveness and civilization. Yes, we understand 
it well, but we insist that all this is no longer science of 
facts. From the standpoint of facts, from the standpoint 
of scientific description and explanation, the living and 
the lifeless are two different groups of substances — the one 
is not better than the other, as the dog is not better than 
the jellyfish, or the jellyfish not better than the infusorium. 
The florist loves his tulip and hates the weed; the botanist 
who describes and explains does not and, from his stand- 
point, cannot hate or love anything; the weed is to him as 
real and, therefore, as important as the most beautiful 
flower. 

As soon as we decide to consider ourselves and our 
civilization as the goal and purpose of the universe, then, 
of course, everything is changed at once. Then civilized 
life is more valuable than savagery, man more valuable 
than the lower animals, living beings more valuable than 
lifeless molecules, cosmos more valuable than chaos. And 
if the one is more valuable than the other, of course it is 
quite correct to call the change from the worse to the bet- 
ter a progress. But such a decision remains fundamentally 
a free decision, a preference, an act of our will. We may 
have no doubt that we ought to prefer man to beast, life 
to chaos, but the preference is independent of the mere 
study of nature, which furnishes us only with the cold 

25 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

facts that beast and man exist, that a lifeless earth pre- 
ceded life, and so on. To proceed from the statement of 
indifferent facts to a decision in favor of a thing which 
we call more valuable than something else, means to change 
altogether the point of view. The one is descriptive sci- 
ence and the other is the expression of will and desire; 
the one records what is, the other proclaims what, in our 
opinion, ought to be. The latter alone shows us the aims ; 
the former gives us merely facts which might be useful to 
reach the goal as soon as we have chosen it. 



CHAPTER IV 



THE ASPECT OF SCIENCE 



Is it a mere chance that the sciences of facts are so cool 
and neutral and abstain from partisanship in favor of or 
against any purposes and ends? Not at all; on the con- 
trary, here we find the deepest meaning of science. Science 
is just that aspect of reality which abstracts from all 
preferences, likings, and dislikings. Science considers the 
world merely as an indifferent system of connected things. 
The complacent philosophy of common sense is not aware 
of this fundamental truth. Common sense fancies that 
the sciences are a kind of copy of the immediate reality of 
life. 

But if we stop to think at all, we must quickly be 
aware that this is a trivial view. What our life experience 
is, everyone can find out for himself; no special scholar- 
ship is needed for it ; nothing can be more immediate, noth- 
ing more certain, nothing more real. And does science 
really try to hold it and fixate it in its freshness and in its 
purity? Never. Science is not a mere copy of real ex- 
perience, but it is experience seen at a special angle. It 
thus demands a reshaping and remodeling of that which 
is given to us in life. The abstractions of the scientist go 
so far that he finally ends where it is entirely impossible 
for any real life experience to follow. The physicist may 
tell me that the drop of ink which at this moment flows 

^7 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

from my fountain pen is made up of millions of atoms, each 
of which is without color and shape. No one has ever seen 
such an atom, no one will ever see one, no possible experi- 
ence can become aware of it ; and yet it is a true scientific 
fact. There is no contradiction here. We must only give 
up the naive view that science really seeks to be a photo- 
graph of pure experience. 

In our true experience of life we know ourselves and 
our neighbors as centers of will and decision; we like and 
dislike, we love and hate, we agree and disagree, we choose 
and reject, we attend and ignore ; in short, we act. Things 
are merely the material for our acts. In such real expe- 
rience the drop of ink which comes from my pen is 
not the play of millions of atoms, but is the ink which I 
need for writing down my thought and which I prefer to 
other kinds of ink. Our whole life is such a chain of will 
acts and interests, and all that we meet is means and aim 
for our interests and purposes. This kind of pure reality 
must be left behind when we construct the sciences with 
their particular truths. 

Their truths do not take and do not attempt to take 
life as it comes to us, but as it must be viewed in the 
service of certain ends. And it is easy to see what ends are 
in question. If we want to make use of the things in the 
world, we must know what they are in themselves, not only 
what they mean to us and what they are for our will, but 
what they are independent of us and our interests. Hence, 
we must look on the chaos of things with the special aim 
of finding out what they themselves contribute to our ex- 
perience and how they hang together without reference to 
us. To do this, we must consider them as objects, which 
are cut loose from our will and interest. As soon as we deal 
with- the things of life as if they were nothing but mere 

^8 



THE ASPECT OF SCIENCE 

objects, they interest us only with reference to their con- 
nection. Their relation to us, to our feeling and will, is 
then ignored and omitted. We call this connection of the 
things among one another causality. To understand these 
connections we must seek their parts, and finally their 
elements. 

All this is artificial; life itself is left behind, because 
in life itself we are never such passive spectators, and the 
things are never so cold, neutral, and indifferent, and we 
do not care for their elements, because we are interested 
in their meaning instead. And yet, it is life itself which 
requires us to take for certain purposes this strange, artifi- 
cial attitude, as if we did. not care for the things and had 
only to dissect and study them. As soon as we accede to 
this demand, we are proceeding scientifically. It is science 
which in its descriptions and explanations shows us all the 
elements and causal connections. Science enables us to 
know the things in their own connections, and by this we 
become able to use them. But just on this account the 
scientist has on principle given up the original relation of 
the things to our own will. 

Now we understand why the descriptive and explana- 
tory sciences can never speak of anything as good or bad, 
as valuable or worthless, and why every reference to what 
we ought to do in the world lies outside of their realm. It 
is because their whole right to existence lies in this resigna- 
tion. They have once for all taken as their particular 
metier the task of dealing with the world as if it were only 
a world of indifferent objects, and therefore it remains for 
all time impossible that they should find in that world 
anything which is not indifferent. As soon as they say 
one event is more desirable than another in that world of 
scientific description, they have become disloyal to the 

^9 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

mission in the service of which they are pledged. Their 
whole meaning is just the abstraction from all such prefer- 
ences and values. The values and preferences and aims 
and purposes are certainly real; they belong to the im- 
mediate reality of life — but science has eliminated them 
and must leave them out if it is to perform its particular 
task. 

When we rightly understand this meaning of descrip- 
tive science, we are led to a sharp separation between the 
question of the " is " and the " ought." Of course this 
must also hold true for the sciences which deal with social 
and mental facts. If we are to describe and explain these 
facts of social order or of individual experiences, we are 
again bound to take them as facts only and to abstract on 
principle from any preferences. As the botanist cares no 
less for the weed than for the flower, the science of man- 
,.kind cares for human foolishness no less than for human 
wisdom; all is material which must be analyzed and ex- 
plained, without passion and without partisanship. The 
most noble deed is from this point of view no better than 
the most hideous crime, the most beautiful sentiment no 
more valuable than disgusting vulgarity, the deepest 
thought of the genius not to be preferred to the inane 
babbling of the insane; all is neutral material which has 
only the one claim, that it exists as a link in a chain of 
causal events. 

The emotions which these facts awake, the attitudes 
which they induce, are themselves nothing but passing 
facts; we have to register our pleasures and dislikes, our 
enthusiasms and pains, as indifferent facts within us, just 
as we notice sunshine and rain without. The struggles of 
nations and races, of religions and parties, then come to 
us as mere facts like the movements of the waves in mid- 
30 



THE ASPECT OF SCIENCE 

ocean : complex facts, perhaps, too complex to be fully ex- 
plained from the known causes. Whether the one party 
will win or the other, whether a nation will -rise to power 
or sink down and be forgotten — as scientists we cannot 
study it otherwise than the problem whether the wave in 
the ocean will swell or fall. Whether the events to come 
are political or personal, social or psychical, the scientist 
remains a scientist only if he handles them as if calculat- 
ing the next eclipse of the sun. '^ It will come " is all he 
can say ; " it ought to come " is on his lips an absurdity. 
To be a psychologist who has to describe and explain 
the mental facts, thus means to consider certain facts; 
namely, those of the inner life, in an artificial way. Just 
as the physicist, as we have seen, does not deal with the 
things of nature in the simple and direct way in which 
the things are given to him in immediate life experience, 
so the psychologist does not deal with the inner occurrences 
in the natural way of life. He, too, considers everything 
as if it were a procession of facts passing before a neutral 
spectator. That spectator the psychologist calls " con- 
sciousness." It is consciousness which is passively aware 
of all those changing ideas and feelings, volitions and 
memories, emotions and imaginations and impulses. That 
is, indeed, a difficult abstraction. In real life this is all 
activity of ours; we do not feel ourselves in life as mere 
spectators of our own struggling emotions and ideas; we 
are taking active attitudes and know ourselves and our 
freedom through these very attitudes. But the psychologist 
has left his starting point of pure experience and for his 
scientific purposes asks only: What is all this if I con- 
sider it calmly as a group of objects? What are their 
elements, what are their connections, their causes and ef- 
fects and their laws? One mental state is, therefore, as a 

31 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

psychological fact, never more valuable than any other 
mental state. No psychology in the world can prescribe to 
us what mental experience is preferable, and that means 
that no psychology can suggest to us of itself what we 
ought to select as our purpose. Whenever a science of 
facts insists on doing this, it is guilty of logical dishonesty ; 
it claims that which does not belong to it. 

Such logical corruption as this goes on everywhere 
about us to-day, too often unnoticed, but never without 
peril to the intellectual life of the time. The harm done 
may not be felt at once, and it may often be very difficult 
to recognize clearly the exact point where the confusion 
and overstepping begins, but no mixing of principles can 
remain without consequences. One-sided reform move- 
ments, eccentric social schemes, overconservative and over- 
radical agitations are working for the most part with just 
such equivocal arguments; they single out a few facts 
which represent a tendency in a certain direction and then 
make us believe that the facts demand a further move in 
that direction. What a confusion of social ideas, for in- 
stance, has followed after Darwin's discovery of the bio- 
logical struggle for existence. The facts showed that in 
nature the strongest survive. At once it was urged that, 
therefore, our social life must be reformed in such a way 
that everything shall serve the survival of the strongest: 
the production of the superman appeared to be the goal. 
\But the facts alone cannot give us a goal."^ They can never 
tell us in what direction we ought to move. It may rather 
be our duty not to press on along the line on which nature 
has moved in the animal kingdom, but to begin a new 
line with human civilization. It may be our true aim not 
to make the strong survive at the expense of the weak, but 
rather to support the weak and to protect him against the 

32 



THE ASPECT OF SCIENCE 

brutal power of mere strength. N'o observation of mere 
facts can settle this dilemna. Whether our civilization 
ought to follow the blind, natural evolution or to over- 
come it by a purposive striving for new ideals is a question 
which must be fought out with arguments which lie en- 
tirely outside of biology or any other science of facts. 



CHAPTER V 

ETHICS AND THE WORLD OF PURPOSES 

Now, at last, we stand before our general question: 
what ought to be the purpose of life and, accordingly, the 
purpose of education ? The examination as to whether the 
knowledge of facts can furnish us with such purposes was 
our first task. It ended with the negative result of show- 
ing that the physical and psychological sciences cannot 
lead us to any decision as to purposes and ends. But 
purposes and ends we must have. And, therefore, we turn 
away from the sciences of facts and ask advice of ethics. 

Some one might interrupt us at the start. He might 
argue about as follows. You speak of ethics as if it were 
outside of the natural and psychological sciences; that is 
unreasonable. All the ethical inquiries deal also with such 
biological and mental facts. For instance, we can study 
what actions and motives have been valued in the devel- 
opment of mankind, what deeds have been esteemed or 
despised by the various nations and the various epochs. 
Or we may ask what actions correspond to our human 
nature, or are suited to the conservation of the organism, 
or to the well-being of the greatest number. All these are, 
after all, questions of mental and social and biological 
facts. But such an argument is misleading. To find out 
what has been prized or blamed at different times and 
places may belong to the preparatory work of ethics, but 

34 



ETHICS AND THE WOELD OF PUEPOSES 

is not ethics itself. What others have done can never de- 
cide the question of our conscience what we ought to do. 

Also that group of inquiries concerning the means of 
welfare leads us no further on. That a certain act serves 
our well-being, or serves the well-being of the greatest 
number is, indeed, a scientific fact which we may study 
by observation. But the question is just whether we ought 
to serve our own pleasure, or, perhaps, the pleasure of the 
greatest number, or whether we ought to seek quite dif- 
ferent aims. Ethics becomes biology and social psychol- 
ogy only if we silently take for granted that we have no 
other obligations than to do what is agreeable to us. N"ow 
that may be a wise or a foolish ethical doctrine; it is cer- 
tainly a definite doctrine which may be accepted or re- 
jected. But whether we ought to accept or reject it, can- 
not be concluded by mere observations of facts. 

What in the world can give us any foothold for further 
inquiry if we cannot gain the necessary advice from the 
physical and psychical facts? Here we must recall what 
we found in our discussion of the meaning of sciences. 
We saw that the sciences of facts do not give us and are 
not required to give us the full immediate reality of our 
life. We saw that science deals with abstractions. Every 
science expresses only a certain aspect, and what we call 
facts of science are descriptions of certain special sides of 
our real experience. 

We recognized clearly that the scientists are interested 
only in the objects which we find, and furthermore in- 
terested in these objects only in so far as they hang to- 
gether with each other. But we saw that our life is 
endlessly richer. In the least bit of our experience we find 
not only objects, but we find will and attitudes. Our pri- 
mary interest really does not lie in the scientific question 

35 



PSYCHOLOGY AN^D THE TEACHER 

of how the things are connected with each other, but in the 
practical aspect of whether the things satisfy our will de- 
mand or not, whether they are valuable for us, whether we 
like or dislike them. We saw that science had to disre- 
gard such questions of preference. But that does not deny 
the importance and reality of our will and its purposes. 

Life in its fullest reality, as we really experience it, is 
accordingly moving in a world which is very different from 
that world of scientific abstractions. Of course we can 
look on anything in the world with the eyes of the scien- 
tist. The child who laughs at my side suggests to me that 
I be happy with his joy ; I try to understand his will. He 
does not come in question for me as a physical or psychical 
thing. We are happy with each other, and in that inti- 
mate relation neither my pleasure nor the child's joy are 
something which need description and explanation. The 
child and I understand each other in spite of the fact that 
we both altogether disregard all that the naturalist or the 
psychologist would observe in us. What we both will only 
requires to be understood in its meaning. There is no 
need of making it an object of analysis and of searching 
for its elements and for its causes. 

Indeed, the same is true for any human relations. We 
adult persons want only to understand one another when 
we talk to our friends. We may agree or quarrel: if we 
take ourselves in our life reality, we feel ourselves as will, 
with its like and dislike. Thus it is entirely superficial 
to say that there is nothing in the world but physical and 
psychical things. On the contrary, the things, as physics 
and psychology view them, give account only of a special 
aspect of life reality, and if we want to understand life 
as we know it in every act and interest, we must go back 
to that which we really experience. That does not detract 

36 



ETHICS AND THE WORLD OF PURPOSES 

in the least from the truth of those scientific studies. It 
only points to their one-sidedness. If I am a chemist I 
may very well consider all the chemical substances of 
which Theodore Roosevelt is composed. But I must not 
imagine that I understand the great President better by 
knowing the percentage of fats and albumens in his or- 
ganism. We must not even think that there are in a way 
two different worlds, one of science and one of life. No; 
the world of life in which our will interests and our pur- 
poses, our means and aims are lying contains and em- 
braces that whole world of scientific abstractions. In 
dealing with the things practically our will makes use of 
all that which scientific knowledge furnishes us. 

As soon as we understand the reality of these will rela- 
tions a wide vista lies open before us. But it is true that 
it needs a certain effort to reach this life reality with full 
understanding. It is indeed most curious how easily most 
people lose hold of that which is, after all, nearest to them. 
They become so accustomed to looking on everything with 
that particular interest of scientific school knowledge that 
they finally forget how one-sided such an aspect is. We 
sometimes find in the asylums pitiable cases of patients 
who are impelled to count everything which they see. If 
they enter a room, they do not think of the chairs as 
something to sit on, but they are interested only in count- 
ing their number. We all are slightly under such a strange 
impulse to confine ourselves to a particular way of look- 
ing on the world as soon as we begin to think about it. 
We may not, like those patients, count the experiences, 
but we treat them as if they are only what the abstractions 
of science make out of them, and in this way we lose the 
vividness of our life relations. 

As soon as we grasp the will character of our true life 
4 37 



^ 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

we easily understand that in this reahn, also, very im- 
portant inquiries may be carried through. For instance, 
wherever an interpretation or an appreciation, we can 
almost say wherever a true understanding is aimed at, we 
must turn back to these realities of life and will. Let 
us make use of the technical terms, and let us say : All 
the knowledge of the scientist, whether it deals with plrj^- 
ical things or with psychical things, is a causal knowl- 
edge. There we are always interested in the causes and 
effects. But this other kind of knowledge which refers to 
our real life is a purposive knowledge. Here we are inter- 
ested only in our aims and purposes and in the means of 
reaching those aims. 

The purposive knowledge is, indeed, very extended. 
For instance, a lawyer who interprets a law is not dealing 
with things and their causal aspect; he deals with an ex- 
pression of will, the judge's will or the legislator's will, and 
he now interprets the meaning and purpose of that will. 
Or the sesthetician who appreciates and judges a work of 
art or literature or music sees in those things of beauty 
the expression of a meaning and will, and he states his own 
attitude and understanding of that will. Yes, we may even 
say that the historian ultimately must deal with just such 
will acts. The historical personality comes in question 
as such a center of will which decides on certain ends 
and acts. Eeal history is a world of such will relations— 
the world in which purposes overlap or clash. We must 
really give up the narrow-minded fear of becoming un- 
scholarly when we give account of the world in other terms 
than in those of causal sciences. We must learn to under- 
stand that our deepest interests can be helped only if we 
do justice to the purposive reality. There we are nearest 
to life. ^ 

38 



ETHICS AND THE WORLD OF PURPOSES 

Then the study which seeks to understand the aims of 
life, the study of ethics, necessarily moves in this sphere of 
purposive knowledge, and, accordingly, there also moves 
the search for the aims of education. If ethics and peda- 
gogy attempted to work within the limits of psychology, 
dealing with inner life only from the point of view of 
science, they would soon be at the end of their powers. 
Life would pass by and they would look on at a procession 
of facts. Nowhere would there be a suggestion of the end 
which ought to be striven for. The result would be an 
aimless, shiftless, haphazard existence, without ideals and 
without inspirations, the emptiness and the triviality which 
is the disease of our time. We must give up this narrow- 
ness and again reach life in its fullness. We must seek 
life's ends by going back to life itself, and not to its shadow 
pictures at which the causal sciences are gazing. 

If we turn back to reality we find it composed of will 
acts, and every will act has its aim and its meaning. The 
outer world now becomes the means and the goal of our will, 
and tlie other men whom we meet are the centers of will. 
We love or hate, respect or despise. If we talk with one 
another, if we agree or disagree, if we enter the class room 
and become interested in the pupils, we are will for them 
and they are will for us. Of course we can artificially force 
on ourselves the other aspect ; we can take the pupil at his 
task in the class room as an organism in which certain 
ideas, feelings, sensations go on which we do not interpret 
as a unity but explain as a bundle of elements. Yet life 
tells us that the child is to us primarily a personality with 
his own unity of will. As such we love him and care for 
him, as such we understand him, as such we want to de- 
velop him and to lead him toward the ideals of wise 
education. 

39 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

Our life is will. Now at last we have reached the realm 
in which there is meaning in asking what will ought to be 
ours, what purposes are valuable, what aims make life 
worth living. Until we have really found these aims in the 
midst of the true life, every educational programme must 
be arbitrary and shifting. 



CHAPTEK VI 

THE ETHICS OF PLEASURE SEEKING 

We are now prepared to do justice to the aims of will, 
as at last we know that we must stick to tlie purposive as- 
pect. We cannot hope for any help for the ethical inquiry 
from the sciences. We must simply ask : what satisfactions 
is our will aiming at ? What do we want from life ? What 
do we call valuable? Is one value better than another? 
Has one will or one purpose better right than another? 
Is one will or aim the one which we ought to will, while 
others are indifferent? 

Of course life shows us an inexhaustible richness of 
aims. And let us understand clearly from the start that 
we have will acts not only where bodily movements are in 
question, not only when we are working or playing or 
speaking or writing. Our will acts may be internal. 
Whenever we aflSrm an opinion or deny a judgment, when- 
ever we approve or reject a plan, whenever we like or dis- 
like anything in the world, we take an attitude and thus 
bring our will into play. If I sit at the dinner table, my 
will expresses itself not only by my sitting down and taking 
the spoon, but if I like or dislike that which I taste or 
smell there, that which I see or hear, it is my will which 
approves or disapproves. It is in each case a choice be- 
tween two opposite possibilities. If I like this particular 
soup, I take a stand in favor of it and reject the opposite 

41 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

attitude. If some one at the table makes a remark which 
I understand, I agree or disagree with it. Though I may 
not say a word, yet my acceptance of it or my disbelief is 
again a will act. In short, there is no pulse beat of life in 
which ever5^one does not behave purposively, however triv- 
ial and small the purpose may be. 

For ethics to bring order out of such a chaos of pur- 
poses, it has usually seemed simplest to group them and 
to make a kind of hierarchy. There are less important and 
more important purposes. A thing which is valuable for 
a week is more valuable than that which is valuable for 
only half a day. That which is agreeble for the moment, 
even very agreeable, but which brings pain afterwards, is 
certainly not so valuable as that which has no disagreeable 
consequences. That which brings satisfaction to the will 
of two persons is nicer than that which satisfies one only. 
That which is valuable without hurting anyone is better 
than that which gives pleasure to some at the expense of 
the suffering of others. In this way we indeed can work 
up a system of purposes in which everything is conve- 
niently arranged in accordance with the strongest possible 
pleasure of the greatest possible number of persons. Thus 
we come to an ethics which is based on the calculation of 
the amount of pleasure. It is the kind of ethics which has 
generally formed the background of education. It has 
usually been silently accepted without much scrutiny. 

Instead of pleasure, we might take another principle of 
arrangement. We might ask what purposes best serve the 
welfare of the organism. That which is damaging, that 
which injures man or his progeny is an undesirable pur- 
pose. Only those aims which ultimately help toward the 
greatest possible success of the greatest possible number of 
human organisms are really valuable. But practically, 

42 



THE ETHICS OF PLEASUEE SEEKING 

whether we speak of pleasure or of success, we have made 
no change — both belong together and we come to the same 
grouping of human purposes. 

But some one may ask: Why did we make this detour 
through the field of will and purpose, as such a scheme of 
grouping our values might just as well be reached, and 
has been reached a thousand times in the midst of the 
fact knowledge, in the midst of physics and psychology; 
in short, in the midst of that world in which everything 
is looked upon causally. Indeed, every psychologist can 
easily find out what will produce pleasure and what 
pain; every biologist can find out what will be useful for 
the organism and what injurious. If ethics cannot teach 
us anything but the grouping of our will purposes with 
reference to pleasure or to success, we should certainly do 
more wisely to seek all information simply from the 
sciences. 

We have no right to say no to such an objection. Of 
course the sciences as such can say only : this will be help- 
ful and this will be injurious, this will bring pleasure and 
this pain. From their own account they could not say that 
it is better to seek that which is pleasurable than that which 
is disagreeable. But let ethics once give such a cue and 
scheme, let ethics once for all decide that the aim of life 
is pleasure or is physical w^elfare, and then everything 
can be quickly settled by the verdict of causal knowledge. 
We have only to seek and to calculate the effects which 
will be produced. Education itself then becomes subordi- 
nated to the pleasures which man is seeking. 

However often such a goal may have been silently ac- 
cepted, we must reject it with earnest indignation. The 
kitchen may select its sauces to bring pleasure to our 
tongue, the vaudeville house may try to flatter our senses, 

43 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

but the school room certainly has a more important mission 
than to endeavor to find how it can bring to us the greatest 
amount of pleasure. Do not say that it is not the pleasure 
in the school hour itself, but rather the pleasure in later 
life, the pleasure which spreads out which the teacher pro- 
vides. The principle is not changed by that. To put the 
strength and effort of a whole personality into the one pur- 
pose of serving the desire for pleasure ought to be humili- 
ating for every serious-minded teacher. No wonder that 
the teacher's profession seems so cheap and low and dis- 
couraging to a large number of the teachers themselves. 
It is drudgery — yes, it is slavery — to work hard merely in 
order that those boys and girls may have pleasure and be 
amused as much as possible through all their lives. No 
wonder that the faces of our school-teachers look so hag- 
gard and worn and nervous and depressed, if their whole 
life is nothing but an unending effort in order that people 
may have more fun and pleasure in life. If the pleasure 
idea encircles the efforts, then nothing else remains to them 
except to seek in exchange some pleasure for themselves. 
But then they discover that their work is hard and ungrate- 
ful, and that their pay, for which they might buy the 
pleasures of the world, is miserably small and meager. 
Truly, they have chosen the hardest lot on earth! 

Worst of all, it seems so utterly useless and utterly 
hopeless. If we give our best to build up in a hundred 
children clear thought and rich knowledge, aesthetic appre- 
ciation and moral inspiration, the love of all that is high 
and dignified and beautiful and glorious, do we really 
fancy that the total sum of pleasure that will come to them 
will finally be greater for the average than if we had left 
them in their vulgarity and stupidity and carelessness and 
brutality? The woman who enjoys the treasures of liter- 

44 



THE ETHICS OF PLEASURE SEEKING 

ature has no more pleasure from it than the other who 
enjoys only her chewing gum, and the man who devotes his 
leisure hours to the best thoughts of serious authors does 
not gain more pleasure than the other who wastes his time 
in a disgusting saloon. Yes, the whole story of mankind, 
then, seems like the most absurd effort and civilization like 
the silliest blunder. Has mankind at the height of the 
twentieth century really more pleasure than the savage 
tribe in the bushes? Has the man who is burdened with 
the responsibilities of highest culture really more pleasure 
than the shepherd who lies in the sun, and does the shep- 
herd have more fun than the dumb beasts around him? 
Has not every step in civilization meant new difficulties 
and new problems, new conflicts and new responsibilities, 
new labor and new hardship? If pleasure is the goal, let 
us escape from civilization, let us throw off our proud 
achievements and let us learn from the herds on the 
meadow, which live for their sensual instincts. 

How could it appear otherwise ? Not much psychology 
is needed to know that all pleasure and displeasure feelings 
are relative. The fact that everyone feels pleasure and dis- 
pleasure only with reference to that to which he is accus- 
tomed and which he expects is, after all, the greatest com- 
fort. The poor man can have more pleasure from the 
smallest trifle than the rich man from a large gain. How- 
ever high or low the average level of our life may lie, our 
pleasures and displeasures count only from that level. Our 
civilization may bring us to a higher and higher level. Our 
comfort and our grief will in the general average always 
remain the same, as they do not indicate anything else 
than the fluctuations from the middle point. The spoiled 
child of the millionaire has no more pleasure from her 
phonographic doll than the laborer's child from her home- 

45 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHEK 

made rag doll. Even if we abstract from this superficial 
difference of mere wealth, and point to the essentials of 
life, there is no more pleasure and no less discomfort at 
the height of civilization among the best educated and most 
highly trained men than in the lowest gang of corrupt 
scoundrels. The mechanism of the mind takes care of that; 
the chances of fate and the caprices of life and to a high 
degree the differences of temperament must cause much 
difference from man to man and from neighbor to neigh- 
bor. But the history of civilization has not changed the 
general average for mankind, and the school education has 
not changed the general average for individuals. 

Of course you say at once that the pleasure has become 
better, richer, and higher, that the joy of creation is end- 
lessly more valuable than the pleasure of eating. Indeed, 
exactly that is the case. But it indicates only that the 
decisive factor does not lie in the mere amount of pleasure. 
One pleasure stands higher than another, is more valuable 
than another. This means that we refer even our pleasures 
to a scale of values which in itself cannot be determined 
merely by the pleasurableness. 



CHAPTER VII 



THE TRUE VALUES OF LIFE 



We look backward. If life and education are to be con- 
trolled by the search for pleasure only, education is a hope- 
less, useless, and meaningless task and the work of the edu- 
cator cheap and empty. But is not the life we live falsified 
and distorted as long as we insist that nothing but 
pleasure can satisfy our will? There are other demands 
in us, and their fulfillment gives us a satisfaction of a dif- 
ferent order. Only if we grasp this higher goal of life 
does the task of the teacher become important, imposing, 
and glorious. No calling is more wonderful in its aim, 
none more inspired in its meaning. The soul of every 
teacher ought to be filled with the blessedness of the work 
and with the joy of the achievement, and it would not be 
otherwise if they would at last see the purposes of life in 
their true meaning and could forget their misleading 
prejudices. Of course, if they gaze at the world as if the 
natural sciences could bring them the whole truth and as if 
man were nothing but the organism, nothing else can be 
expected but such a cheap pleasure ethics with its common- 
places of the greatest pleasure of the greatest number. 
But we had reached a different starting point. We saw 
that our will and its purposes have a more immediate 
reality, and that we have a right to seek that which is valu- 
able in the world from our immediate life experience. 

47 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

Hence we ask once more: what is really valuable? 
That is, what satisfies the human demand ? So far we have 
spoken of only one kind of values — the pleasure values. 
After all, what demand is satisfied by them? What we 
seek in seeking our pleasures is a certain state of ourselves. 
We call pleasure that state of ourselves which we aim to 
continue, and displeasure or pain that which we aim to 
break up. The thing which we like because it brings us 
pleasure has no value whatever in itself. The thing which 
we dislike because it brings us pain is not worthless in 
itself. The one may please our senses, the other may hurt 
our senses, but it is our little, personal concern. The world 
is not better or worse by it. But is that really the only 
kind of values which we know ? 

Let us seek our way by comparing our purposes with 
our objects in the world. What kind of objects do we 
know ? Some one may say red objects and blue objects and 
so on, or stars and stones and so on. Nevertheless they 
all belong together, they all form the one general class of 
physical objects. But besides them there is one other class 
to which the dreams and ideas and memories and imagina- 
tions belong — the psychical objects. Thus there are only 
two large classes of objects, the psychical and the physical. 
What is the difference between them? The psychical ob- 
jects, as we saw before, are objects which belong only to one 
individual. My ideas are my own. No one can share them 
with me in my mind. My neighbor may have similar ideas, 
but each of us has his ideas for himself. On the other hand, 
the physical objects are objects which we all have in com- 
mon. The mountain before me is the same mountain which 
anybody else may see and climb. I do not mean only that 
I can share that physical thing with a few friends. No. If 
I speak of a physical thing I mean something which is a 

48 



THE TRUE VALUES OF LIFE 

possible object for every man in the world. If we say that 
a physical thing has reality, what we have in mind is just 
this, that it must be accepted as an object by everyone. 
The landscape which I see here before my piazza is the 
real landscape because everyone who mig?it be in my place 
would share it with me. The isbiry landscape which I see 
in my imagination is unreal and does not belong to the 
true world because it is only an object for me. No one 
else can perceive its trees and flowers. 

Can we not apply this principle also to the classification 
of our purposes, our will acts, our values? Have we not 
there also on the one side values which exist only for the 
single individuals, and on the other values which are meant 
to hold true for every possible being? To open at once a 
perspective, we ought to say: yes, this difference exists. 
There are values which concern merely the chance desires 
of the individual; they are the pleasures. There are other 
values which satisfy us without any reference to our chance 
personal requirements, because the demand for them be- 
longs to every possible being. We cannot think a real 
being without it, and because such demands are indepen- 
dent of the chance personality, their satisfaction belongs 
to a class of values which stands incomparably higher than 
mere pleasure. Just as the objects which are common to 
all, the physical things form the true world as against the 
dreams and imaginations and hallucinations of the indi- 
viduals, so the values which must be common to all form 
the true world of satisfaction, as against the haphazard 
pleasures of the individual man. 

If I meet a man it may be my will to ask him for ad- 
vice or to buy something of him or to enjoy his conversa- 
tion; all that is strictly personal. I will it without the 
least expectation that some one else may will the same. 

49 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

All that my will is seeking is my personal satisfaction, 
which means my own pleasure. But if I see a man whom 
I do not know in mortal danger, my will aims to help him. 
The purpose of my will is now the saving of his life. It 
is my own will, and yet this time I do not will it for my 
personal end, for my private interest, for my own pleasure. 
It is a will in me, the aim of which has no reference to my 
well-being, but to something which is of common value to 
everyone, the respect for human life. If I will to help 
and not to kill, to protect and not to steal, to speak the 
truth and not to lie, the purpose of my will is on each 
occasion independent of my personal pleasure and advan- 
tage. It may even be in conflict with my personal desires, 
and yet my will toward the painful sacrifice is strong. I 
do not lie and do not steal, even if my personal gain would 
be secured thereby. 

But let us not linger on such a chance illustration from 
the moral field. How is it, for instance, with all that 
which we call knowledge and thinking? I seek the truth 
and I affirm the true judgment. I say two times three is 
six, and if some one suggests that two times three may be 
seven, I reject such a proposition. I do not will it; it does 
not fulfill my purpose. Yet, is that purpose my personal 
advantage? Certainly not! I will the true judgment be- 
cause it is valuable in itself, not for my personal benefit. 
More than that, I mean by truth nothing else than such 
judgments which I will with the claim that every person 
must will them with me regardless of personal pleasure. 
The ancient Sophists tried to make the crowd believe 
that there is no such truth, which is valuable for all, 
and that any individual may call truth whatever fits 
his or his neighbor's personal purposes. But Socrates 
showed for all time the absurdity and the inner contra- 

50 



THE TEUE VALUES OF LIFE 

dictions of such sophistry. This pseudo-thought has not 
gained in value by being renewed in our own day by the 
" Pragmatists." Whatever they pretend, they themselves 
want to give us a truth and that means something that 
everyone who thinks at all has to accept as valuable. Hence, 
they themselves claim — in contradiction to their own prin- 
ciples — that there exists some real truth which has more 
than merely personal meaning. Of course the possibility 
that a personal pleasure may be added to the real value of 
the truth is not excluded. I may have personal advantage 
from knowing certain facts and certain truths, but the 
pleasure derived from my personal gain involved in the 
knowledge does not make the value of these truths. 

We have exactly the same case in the world of art and 
beauty. To be sure, we may have a personal pleasure in 
seeing a painting or hearing a symphony or reading a 
drama; and yet no one has understood the meaning and 
mission of art who does not feel that the personal en- 
joyment does not constitute the true value of the artistic 
creation. We may as well derive pleasure from dancing 
and feasting, from fighting and sleeping, but the enjoy- 
ment of the tragedy and the symphony is upheld by the 
conviction that we are in contact with something that is 
more than our chance pleasure, something that must be 
valuable to everyone who understands the beauty of the 
world. 

The case is not different with our politics and law, nor 
even with our practical profession and business. Of course 
we may work for a political party which gives us personal 
advantage at the same time, but the underlying, deeper 
will is certainly the will for reform and progress, for right- 
eousness in the world. All our striving is meaningless if 
we do not feel in ourselves the belief that progress in the 

51 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

world is better than regress, justice more valuable than 
injustice. Even our business is ultimately inspired by 
such a belief. Of course it appeals first to our personal in- 
terest, and yet the true spirit of commercial activity is in- 
stinctively conscious of a higher aim: the economic prog- 
ress of the world. To master nature by technical progress, 
to make paths into the wilderness, to develop the treasures 
of the earth, to distribute them to those who need them, 
and to awake new needs in the millions for a higher and 
fuller life — all that is again a value which may inspire the 
humblest laborer and merchant with a belief in a higher 
purpose in the service of which he is toiling. 

Thus we find in every sphere of human life two different 
kinds of will, two different kinds of purposes. There are 
purposes which are personal and which refer to mere ad- 
vantage and pleasure, and there are purposes which we will 
without reference to our personal state. We will them with 
the belief that they are valuable in themselves, inde- 
pendent of the advantage which they bring to individuals. 
We accept them as will purposes for everyone and welcome 
their fulfillment as true values, without asking whether 
they are pleasant or not. A truth though painful is wel- 
comed, nevertheless, as truth by our reason; the painful 
moral deed as well is welcomed by our conscience as a 
valuable act. Our whole life is thus penetrated by will 
acts which spring from a deeper source than the mere 
desire for the relief from pain, and the world is full of 
values which have a higher mission than to bring us 
pleasure. 

We might stop here. It might be sufficient to point 
to this, and we should certainly be justified in building up 
on these facts of our life an ethics of a higher order. Our 
true aim is to realize those absolute values without ref- 

52 



THE TEUE VALUES OF LIFE 

erence to pleasure. Yet might we not dare to enter more 
deeply into the mysteries of these facts? After all, how 
can we understand that we will something which we do 
not will for ourselves, that we value something which 
brings us no advantage? 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE HUMAN IDEALS 

Here I erect a danger signal. We have found in our 
life experience purposes which we will and which yet give 
us no pleasure, values which satisfy us, although we do not 
desire them for ourselves. If we really want to understand 
what this means and what it signifies, we must turn for a 
while to hard, philosophical thought. Not everybody cares 
to climb up such a mountain in order to gain from the 
top the wider vista. Such a one may be warned before- 
hand. He should rather skip this philosophical chapter. 

But there are too many who, hearing that philosophy 
is in question, fancy that this must mean a vague specu- 
lation. They think of old-fashioned metaphysics which 
^had no reference to facts. But nothing of that kind 
tempts us. We have a very stubborn fact before us and we 
hate only the ostrich policy which does not want to see the 
difficulties. We all do acknowledge the value of truth and 
beauty, of love and peace, of progress and justice, of mo- 
rality and religion. And it is surely no arbitrary question 
to ask what we mean by it. The reference to our or to 
anyone's pleasure, we saw, is no answer at all. 

Of course we cannot really enter here into a full dis- 
cussion of this deepest and central problem of human 
life. The great thinkers of all times have devoted to it 
their fullest energy. From, the days of the classical Greek 

54 



THE HUMAN^ IDEALS 

philosophers to our own day, in which a new philosophical 
life seems to begin again, this question as to the ultimate 
meaning of truth and beauty and morality and religion, 
that is, as to the ultimate meaning of eternal values, has 
stood in the foreground. Each age has to answer this 
question in its own spirit. Our time cannot be satisfied by 
the beautiful answer which Plato gave to such inquiries; 
our time wants to analyze the facts carefully, and simply 
to accept that which the facts themselves suggest. 

Let us consider the material of our experience just as 
we find it in our naive life. Let us try to forget for a mo- 
ment all that we have learned in our school knowledge and 
all that we have organized and harmonized in such life 
experience. Let us take the life material in the crude 
state in which it comes. It is a chaos, an infinite number 
of impressions, impulses and suggestions, of demands and 
ideas and things. Evidently, this chaotic material is of 
three different kinds. There is the stuff of which the 
things are made; secondly, there is our own willing; and 
thirdly, there are the demands of other men. All three 
kinds of elements are constantly flowing together. We feel 
our own will in our impulses and desires and agreements 
and disagreements; we feel the things which appear and 
disappear; and we feel the other men whom we under- 
stand. 

Now, in this chaotic state all these experiences are en- 
tirely worthless ; they are not a real world. Those things do 
not form an organized outer world, those demands and sug- 
gestions of others do not form an organized fellow-world, 
those rushing bits of our own will do not form a truly or- 
ganized inner world. Everything is merely a streaming 
and swarming of passing chance experiences, flashes of life, 
waves of excitement, like a meaningless dream. On the 

55 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

other hand, wherever we find something beautiful, or 
happy, or true, or progressive, or just, or moral, or holy, 
whether in ourselves or in other men or in the outer world, 
we call it valuable. We are completely satisfied with it. 
What has brought about the change ? How has this worth- 
less chaos of haphazard experiences become the material 
of our complete satisfaction? Have all these values noth- 
ing in common? If we compare their structure, can we 
find any one feature which characterizes all of them? 

Indeed, such a feature is always present. We may state 
it at first in a very dry, abstract way. In every one of 
these cases we have grasped some bit of experience, have 
held it, have maintained it, and have found it the same in 
a new experience. Yes ; we may make the sweeping state- 
ment: all of these values have in common the one factor 
that a certain element of experience asserts itself. It is 
maintained in the changing chaos. It did not merely come 
up to disappear, but it could be found again in a new state. 

We must make this clearer. Let us take the case of 
knowledge which gives us the value of truth. The natural 
scientist furnishes us with the connections of physical and 
chemical processes, the historian gives us the connections of 
human deeds, the mathematician gives us the connections 
of equations, the logician gives us the connections of judg- 
ments ; they all demonstrate connections to us. And yet if 
we really go to the depths of the situation, we find that all 
their so-called connections are only different ways of ex- 
pressing just that sameness which we claimed for all the 
valuable experiences. What the naturalist really wants to 
tell us is how we must tliink of those particular changes 
in order to understand that all those atoms in nature 
remain always the same, that no particle of substance has 
disappeared and none has appeared anew, that everything is 

56 



THE HUMAN IDEALS 

only a going on of the same elements of nature. These 
elements change their positions, but they cannot lose their 
sameness, they must assert themselves. If anything goes 
on in the physical world, the chemist has completely ex- 
plained it for us if he can show us how all the elements in 
it and in the surroundings have only combined and changed 
their positions. But no miracle has brought anything 
anew, no miracle has made anything disappear, the coming 
and going of the things was only an illusion. In reality 
everything lasts. Now this alone is indeed the goal of 
natural science. Through two thousand years mankind 
has worked with the aim of understanding all the changes 
in nature as mere changes of position of the elements 
which we call atoms. All the special laws are only par- 
ticular forms of realizing this ideal of a system of nature 
in which all the substances and energies maintain them- 
selves, and thus remain the same tliroughout all the ap- 
parent changes. 

It is not different with the historian or the logician or 
the mathematician. Their material is not things but will 
acts. All logic shows us that the premises demand the con- 
clusions, all mathematics shows us that certain equations 
demand certain other equations. The real meaning is that 
what is willed in the premises is also willed in the con- 
clusions. It is the same will, the same aim, which asserts 
itself and which is maintained throughout the changing 
expressions. What is meant by one group of equations is 
found the same in new terms in the resulting equation. In 
short, if we go to the deeper meaning of human knowledge, 
it shows itself everywhere as the endlessly complex effort 
of mankind to understand the chaos of experience in such 
a way that the single experiences may assert themselves. 
They shall not be swept away by every new pulse beat of 

57 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

life, every will shall be found again in new expressions, 
every little thing shall be found again in new experiences, 
ever3rthing which conies up in the stream of life shall be 
maintained. Everything which is serviceable for this way 
of looking on the experiences of man is called truth. That 
which we appreciate in our knowledge, and which alone 
satisfies us in it, is that it allows us to overcome the 
chaotic character of our experience and to see in it a self- 
maintaining reality. 

Let us consider another attitude toward life. We value 
not only the truth, but also the unity and harmony and 
beauty in the world. Yet what are unity and harmony 
but again the finding of self-assertion in our life surround- 
ings or in ourselves ? This time it is the recurrence of the 
same meaning, of the same intention. In the case of truth 
a single bit of experience is given to us, and we seek this 
same element throughout the changing experiences of life; 
in harmony and unity a manifold is given to us, and we 
are satisfied when we find that one part of it agrees with 
the other, or that all parts show the same intention. In 
friendship and love and peace we find the same will in 
the social manifold. In beautiful nature we find the same 
intention and suggestion in every line and color, in every 
rock and wave. In our own happiness we find this har- 
mony and inner agreement in the manifold of our own de- 
sires and intentions. All this finds its reflection in the 
works of art. The painter shows us a spot of the world 
in complete self-agreement. Every part harmonizes with 
every other part. Unity is the one great secret of the realm 
of beauty. Literature shows us the life of man in this com- 
plete, restful unity. Even when in the drama the charac- 
ters clash in the sharpest conflict, yet the drama as a whole 
is a unified manifold in which every jDart serves the aim 

58 



THE HUMAN IDEALS 

of the whole in perfect harmony. Every verse and every 
rhyme of the poem agrees with every other sound in it and 
with its meaning and purpose. In short, love and hap- 
piness and art alike show us a manifold experience in 
such a way that the one part is in its intentions the same 
as the other. 

Let us turn to another group of human values. Our 
life experience shows us changes and actions. Every 
change seems to indicate that the thing which we have 
grasped is lost again and that something else has come in 
its place. Yet there is again a possible aspect by which the 
first experience maintains itself, after all, throughout the 
change, namely, if the change becomes the realization of 
that which was intended from the start. The acorn be- 
comes an oak tree, but throughout this change the new ful- 
fills only what the old intended. We value such a change 
and call it a development. In social life we speak of 
progress, in nature we speak of growth, in our own life we 
speak of self -development. The most important of all 
changes is the one in which a will transforms itself into 
action. Again we are satisfied, and the action which is per- 
formed shows itself as the same wliich the will really in- 
tended. If the will is that of the community, we value its 
realization as the lawful life of the state. It is lawlessness 
when the action is not the same as the real will of the 
social body, when the statutes are misapplied and violated, 
when corruption sidetracks the law. In the case of the 
individual, we value this realization of the real will as mor- 
ality. If the individual prefers the pleasant effect to that 
action which he himself really wants as action, then we 
have an immoral deed. The thief prefers the booty to the 
honest action, but he does not will the action of stealing as 
such. In short, whether we appreciate the natural progress 

59 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHEE 

and development or the law and the moral life, in every 
case we apprehend a change in the experience as one in 
which the final stage is the same as that which was in- 
tended in the first stage. The first intention asserts itself 
through its realization. 

Thus we have three large domains of valuable experi- 
ences before us — the logical values of truth and knowledge, 
the aesthetic values of harmony and unity and happiness 
and beauty, and the ethical values of progress and develop- 
ment, of law and morality. But we may go one step fur- 
ther. Every one of these three types of values showed to us 
that one experience remained the same in another experi- 
ence. Finally, does not just this hold for religion, too? 
Religion shows us that these various valuable worlds of 
truth and harmony and morality are themselves ultimately 
the same throughout. In the chaos of immediate life expe- 
rience we find the apparent clash of what our demands 
for truth and for happiness and for morality bring to us. 
Through the convictions of religious belief the whole expe- 
rience is imbedded in an all-embracing life in which the 
processes of nature and the happiness of the heart and the 
goodness of will are united and in which the world asserts 
itself and maintains itself as the same. 

Hence we can grasp all those ideal values of truth 
and beauty and harmony, of progress and morality and 
religion under one formula. They all . represent the same 
principle. At the bottom everywhere the demand is for 
the self -maintenance of experience. That which we really 
find in immediate life is a chaos; bits and flashes of loose 
life contents surround us. If that were the last of it, 
our life would be nothing but a dream. We should not 
really have a world. It would be a meaningless coming 
and going. Each bit of life would grow up and vanish. 

60 



THE HUMAN^ IDEALS 

All those efforts to find experiences which maintain them- 
selves are therefore efforts to overcome the chance, dream- 
like character of life and to find a world. To give to our 
life the meaning of a real world of experience is thus the 
same as to seek among the fleeting impressions that which 
maintains itself and which recurs. Accordingly, we over- 
come the worthless, chance life by seeking that which 
asserts itself, and we saw that the self -maintenance of the 
experiences expresses itself in those various values which 
we analyzed. To seek truth and beauty and harmony, 
progress and religion means to gain a real world in place 
of a chaotic dream. 

Now we see why these values must be valid for every- 
one: simply because everyone must will to have a world. 
If there were anyone whom we could think of as being sat- 
isfied with the blind swarming of meaningless experiences, 
he would not know any other purposes than the securing of 
that which brings pleasure and the avoiding of that which 
brings pain. But he would not share our interests, he 
would not care for truth and mutual understanding, he 
really would not take part in our world at all. We recog- 
nize as reasonable fellow-beings only those who will to find 
a world. For every reasonable fellow-being these values are 
therefore valid. He has no choice : he must will them if 
he wills a world at all. A world in which the experiences 
do not maintain themselves cannot be conceived. Whoever 
wants a world must therefore want those expressions of 
self-assertion in experience. Wherever he finds them — it 
may be the slightest bit of truth, the faintest ray of hap- 
piness, the smallest step of progress in any field, a moral 
action or a thing of beauiy or a religious belief — there he 
must find a satisfaction, even if it does not bring the least 
personal pleasure. Those values are thus sources of satis- 

61 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

faction for everyone whom we acknowledge as a reasonable 
being. In a more technical term, we may say that they are 
absolutely valuable. Their value is absolute because it is 
not linked with the chance pleasures of the individual, but 
simply fulfills that fundamental demand for a real world. 

From here we can recognize what the aims of our 
actions ought to be. We saw that the actions of man are 
absolutely valuable only if they correspond and are the 
same as the deepest will of man: we called this corre- 
spondence morality. We are really valuable beings only if 
our actions express that which we are intending in our 
deepest, most fundamental will. Whatever else we may do 
in running after our pleasures has chance character 
and has no reference to the value of ourselves. We our- 
selves have absolute value only if our doing expresses our 
own deepest will. Wherever there is a conflict between an 
action which tempts us because it promises pleasure and 
another action which we will for its own sake, there we our- 
selves are valuable only if we perform the latter action. 
The first action was not really willed by us ; we wished only 
the pleasant effect. But the action which we willed as such 
corresponded to our deepest demand ; it must be fulfilled, if 
we are not to lose our own value. 

'Now we saw that our deepest, fundamental action is 
the will to find self-asserting experiences — that is, truth 
and beauty and morality and so on. Wherever the striv- 
ing for such absolute values comes in conflict with our 
individual chance desires for pleasure, we lose our own 
true value — that is, we do not really remain loyal to our 
own will — if we yield to the individual desire instead of 
seeking the absolute value. Ethics teaches us what we 
ought to do. Now, we ought to do that which makes our- 
selves valuable, and we ought not to do that which makes 

62 



THE HUMAi^ IDEALS 

ourselves worthless. We saw that we ourselves become val- 
uable if we fulfill that deepest will toward absolute values 
which is the will toward the real world. The absolute 
values thus become the ideals of man, the goals for his 
actions. In other words, we are valuable personalities only 
in so far as we help to upbuild the absolute values, and we 
are worthless in so far as our merely individual demands in- 
terfere with the upbuilding of the realm of values. Life 
has a meaning, our soul is eternally valuable, in so far as 
we help to erect and to realize through our actions of 
thought and of body the ideals of truth and beauty, of 
progress and morality, of happiness and love and religion. 



CHAPTER IX 



THE AIMS OF EDUCATION 



We have seen that the ends of education can never be 
deduced from mere observation of facts. We recognized 
that we need a clear understanding of final aims before we 
have a right to approach the facts. The facts are our tools, 
with which we try to secure the desired effects, but we 
must determine beforehand what aims we want to reach. 
That led us to the world of will and purpose, but in this 
world of purposive reality we could not separate the ques- 
tion of education from that of human ends in general. We 
needed, therefore, the inquiry of ethics as to the valuable 
aims in life, and that inquiry had to be a philosophical 
one. Now we have reached its results. We know what we 
ought to do, because we know what constitutes the value of 
our life. 

Our life is valuable in so far as it is devoted to the real- 
ization of the absolute values, and we recognized in what 
sense we have a right to speak of values, which must be 
absolute — that is, valid for everyone. These logical and 
ethical and sesthetic and religious values are the necessary 
ideals of every human life which seeks a meaning. To 
build up these values by knowledge and friendship, by art 
and life, by growth and progress, by industry and law and 
morality and religion is a common task of striving man- 
kind. This is our task, not because it brings pleasure to 

64 



THE AIMS OF EDUCATIOlNr 

the one or to the many or to most, but because it is valuable 
in itself. It fulfills that one aim without which we cannot 
think of a world. It is the one will without which our life 
would become a chaos and a dream. No life can be valu- 
able which does not help in the upbuilding of these values, 
and whoever interferes with this ideal task prostitutes his 
personality. 

Education is the preparation for life. It is a large and 
a noble part of life itself, and yet it finds its particular aim 
and purpose in the preparation for the life which is to 
come when the happy school days are over. Hence the 
purpose of education is to make the boy and girl willing 
and able to help in the realization of ideal values. 

What a different perspective has opened itself now for 
the work of the teacher ! The teacher who drills the child 
so that he may become able to reap pleasures and advan- 
tages for the gratification of his personal wishes is noth- 
ing but a servant of man; the teacher who educates the 
child so that he may become a helper toward ideal aims 
is truly a priest of mankind. The one view humiliates the 
teacher, the other raises his work to the highest sphere ; the 
one transforms his daily labor into drudgery and monot- 
ony, the other into a work of enthusiasm and inspiration; 
the one makes it marketable service, poorly paid ; the other 
makes it a delight and an honor, which is abundant reward 
in itself. The former still prevails in the routine dealing 
of the profession and in the narrow view of the superficial 
community; the latter must take hold more and more of 
teachers and parents and the whole social body if educa- 
tion is to yield its noblest fruit. 

Let us be sure at once that a complete misunderstanding 
does not set in. To prepare the child to become willing 
and able to serve the realization of ideals must not be un- 

65 



PSYCHOLOGY A^B THE TEACHEE 

derstood as if it meant to subordinate all education to a 
merely moral education ; to make the boys and girls agents 
for ideal purposes in no way means simply to make them 
good boys and girls. Morality as such is only one of these 
many ideal values. To make the youth a bearer of moral 
ideals is only a fraction of the educational task. We may 
say it in this way. Morality demands that we choose and 
realize the ideal intention. But these ideal intentions 
themselves do not for that reason necessarily refer to mor- 
ality. Beauty and truth and progress and law and har- 
m.ony are just as truly ideal aims as goodness. It is an 
ethical demand that we devote our lives to the upbuilding 
of the world of values, but there is no demand that we 
focus our activity on the ethical values. The direct teach- 
ing of morality may perhaps be left out of education alto- 
gether. And yet the child who is made willing and able 
to live for the human ideals has reached by it a moral 
value for his individual soul. 

Furthermore, the term human ideals must not suggest 
the suspicion that the child is to be prepared for a life in 
a kind of higher sphere — a life surrounded by dramas and 
symphonies, philosophical systems and religious sermons. 
No misunderstanding could be worse. "VVe saw that the 
human ideals are realized wherever that is preferred which 
is valuable for everyone and which, as such, is independent 
of the chance individual desires for pleasure. Even the 
most trivial truth, even the truth that two and two is four, 
is just as much an absolute value of knowledge, satis- 
factory to everyone who seeks a connected world at all, as 
the deepest knowledge of the greatest thinkers. The slight- 
est and most modest step forward in the narrowest circle, a 
little improvement in the neighborhood, is just as much an 
absolutely valuable progress as the great reforms to which 

66 



THE AIMS OF EDUCATION 

leaders and heroes are called. The beauty of a little flower 
or the symmetry of the simplest little arabesque is just as 
absolutely valuable as the highest achievements of classical 
art. 

Above all, not the slightest contrast exists between the 
idealism of life and the longing for true happiness. On 
the contrary, if the ideals of life are to be counted, cer- 
tainly happiness cannot be left out ; only it must be rightly 
understood. Happiness does not mean mere pleasure. All 
the pleasures which are nothing but the gratifications of 
personal desires, from the pleasing of the senses by candy 
to the gratification of our vanity by luxury, are indeed no 
ideal values, and therefore cannot belong to those aims for 
which true education ought to make man willing and able. 
But true happiness does not mean mere exciting of pleasure. 
True happiness is the unity of our inner life. If all of our 
strivings and experiences are in harmony with one another 
and the whole manifoldness of our inner state becomes a 
unity in itself, a moving equilibrium, in which new and 
ever new will acts harmonious with the conditions of life 
are unfolding themselves — then indeed true happiness is 
reached. The satisfaction which it brings has the same 
absolute value which perfect beauty has. Yes, happiness 
has its true place among the aesthetic values. It means the 
perfect beauty of the state of our soul, and the world is 
endlessly richer in its inner beauty by the fact that hap- 
piness glows in human souls. Happiness as a complete 
unity of the inner world thus corresponds to love and 
friendship and peace as the complete unity of the human 
manifold. To strive for pleasure is no ideal goal ; to strive 
for the realization of- love and happiness is a human aim 
of absolute value. Of course there is no contradiction be- 
tween the two. Pleasure may enter as an element into 

67 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

happiness and into love just as a personal, practical ad- 
vantage may enter into our knowledge of the truth; but 
truth is not true because it gives us advantages, and love 
and happiness are not beautiful because they give us pleas- 
ure. Truth and beauty and happiness alike are perfect in 
themselves, and glorious is the life which serves their real- 
ization. 

The ideal values also must not be misinterpreted as if 
they stood in any possible contrast to practical work and 
earning labor. The term ideal value must not suggest a 
kind of flabby, lackadaisical snobbishness. As in the case 
of pleasure and happiness, here,- too, we have to se2:)arate 
what is simply individual desire from what has abso- 
lute value. Certainly much in the sphere of the market 
and commerce and industry is controlled by selfish desires. 
They are not bad in themselves. They do not necessarily 
interfere with higher aims, just as sensuous pleasures do 
not interfere with the true values of happiness and love. 
But the real impelling force which gives meaning and value 
to this life of market and industry is the ideal of progress ; 
and no ideal stands higher. Whether we toil in the field 
or forge the iron, whether we buy or sell or invent or pro- 
duce, we all are working toward the development of hu- 
man society and the development of the things which man 
finds as material for his work. To master nature and to 
make it helpful to the purposes of rational beings is an ab- 
solute value of achievement no less than 'the achievement of 
law and morality. If it were only a question of pleasure, 
the long way through the history of civilization would 
surely not have been needed. But if we believe in the 
value of progress, then, indeed, it becomes a valuable aim 
to make two blades of grass grow where only one was 
growing, to open the land, to dig out its treasures, to 

68 



THE AIMS OF EDUCATION 

hold them and to form them and to distribute them, to 
awake new and ever new needs and to satisfy them. Com- 
merce and industry then become no less fields of inspira- 
tion than social reform and political progress. They de- 
mand no less loyalty and devotion than the flag of the 
country or the cause of humanity. The humblest worker 
in the mill can do an absolutely ideal work if he is doing 
it in the right spirit. This whole social fabric of ours is 
only a gigantic mill and the eternal value of our work does 
not depend upon the question of whether the wheel which 
we have to turn is a small or a large one. 

Education and school life now have their definite aim 
for us and this aim is the only possible one. No educa- 
tion is needed to make us willing and able to look out for 
the gratification of our personal desires. We do not preach 
that we ought to overcome them. From the lowest ani- 
mal instincts to the complex artificial desires which grow 
up in us, they all belong to us and add to the manifoldness 
of our inner experience. But there is no need of learning 
them ; they have no value in themselves. For our real valu- 
able life they come in question only as far as they help or 
interfere with the realization of ideals. If they are an- 
tagonistic to the ideal aims, they are to be suppressed, if 
they help them, they are to be encouraged. Above all, 
they are to be organized in order that those individual de- 
sires may prevail which can be brought into harmony with 
the valuable purposes. But the fundamental aim remains 
to make the pupil willing and able to serve those pur- 
poses which do not lie in the line of his selfish longings. 
The animal in man will satisfy his hunger and thirst and 
his more complex desires, if he is left to himself : the ideal 
agent in man can find himself and can unfold himself and 
can prepare himself only through a true education. 
6 69 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

Education is to make youth willing and able to real- 
ize the ideal purposes. Those two aspects need clear sepa- 
ration. The will alone cannot reach its end, the ability 
alone is without power. Every school influence fulfills its 
purpose only if it works in both directions. The young 
mind must be developed toward a greater and greater readi- 
ness to realize that which is valuable in itself instead of 
that which brings pleasure. To prefer truth and harmony 
and progress and goodness and beauty to error and dis- 
cord and regress and selfishness and vulgarity must be 
learned in every pulse beat of education. But every lesson 
and every new insight must help also to make the child 
able to fulfill his task. His ideal will is ineffective if he 
does not understand the nature which surrounds him, if he 
does not understand the fellow-world which approaches 
him, if he does not understand the demands of his time and 
the technic of their satisfaction. He must learn how to 
fill his place and how to make himself serviceable to the 
common work, how to build up a life of usefulness in the 
forward movement of human progress, from the ability to 
earn a living to the ability to be a leader. 

The mere learning is thus raised to a preparation for 
true culture; the drill is replaced by a preparation for 
serviceableness ; the mere pleasure yields to that true hap- 
piness in which all strivings are perfectly harmonized ; the 
cheap desires give way to a true self-development in which 
the deepest will of man, the will to a self-asserting ideal 
world, unfolds itself. The knowledge and the tastes of the 
child, his attitudes and his powers, his feelings and his 
emotions, his standards and his judgments are brought to a 
higher and higher level and he who entered, concerned only 
with his petty desires, goes out into the world as a worker 
for the ideals of life. 

70 



CHAPTER X 

THE PERSONAL FACTOR 

We have brought the work of education under one for- 
mula. This is not meant to indicate that education should 
be uniform. Everybody ought to be made willing and able 
to realize ideal values, but everybody is called to do it in 
his own way. We all are to serve the same task; and yet 
everybody's task is unique. No one is replaceable; no one 
stands exactly where his neighbor stands. To understand 
life, to become able to earn a living, to become prepared 
for a life of service, to participate in the progress of the 
community, to see the things in their truth and to appre- 
ciate their beauty must mean a different life programme for 
every child. The child who comes from a home of culture 
and refinement, the child who comes from the slums, the 
child who never saw a green meadow, and the child who 
never saw a paved street, cannot be educated after a uni- 
form pattern. The education of the boy cannot be the edu- 
cation of the girl, the education of the intelligent and 
talented child must differ from that of the slow-minded, 
ungifted child. 

But the differences do not end with the variety of con- 
ditions under which the child comes to school. Social 
factors must determine how long the child can stay there. 
The one may pass from the kindergarten to the doctor's 
degree of the large university, from the fourth to the twen- 

71 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHEE 

ty-fourth year of life, the other can hardly afford to be 
kept away from breadwinning work until the thir- 
teenth year, while each school year is crippled by the de- 
mands of the home. The one may enjoy the splendid 
equipment of the metropolitan school, the other must be 
satisfied with a modest country school. Yet still more im- 
portant are the differences between the individual tasks 
which the life after school will put before the individuals. 
To make the child willing and able to realize ideal values 
means also to secure the subtlest adjustment to these later 
differences. The laborer and the farmer, the banker and 
the doctor all must help in building up the realm of values. 
But they are equally well prepared for it, only if they are 
prepared for it in very different ways. That which may 
serve one may be superfluous for another and even a hin- 
drance for the next. In short, * the surroundings from 
which the child comes to school, the talents which he brings 
to school, the time which he can spend at school, the work 
to which he is called after school must give an unlimited 
manifoldness to the shape of the best programme for his 
education. 

Yet in spite of all this variety, there must remain the 
demand for a fundamental unity. We are all children 
of the same time, all heirs of the same civilization united 
with our neighbors by the same traditions, by the same 
laws, by the same hopes, by the same nature, by the same 
moral duties, by the same God. In the dealings of the 
day we may put much emphasis on the hundred things 
which separate us from other men, but after all they are 
the small things, and that which unites us is greater and 
more essential. The mill hand and the captain of industry, 
the servant girl and the banker's wife go through the 
masquerade of life very unequally dressed ; and yet the same 

72 



THE PERSONAL FACTOR 

sun shines on all of them and makes morning and evening, 
and the same year turns round and brings to all of them 
the hope of the spring and the sadness of the autumn. 
We all need the ties with the past, an insight into the 
present, and an anticipation of the future, we all need 
character, we all need liberty and law, we all need health 
and good will, we all need joy and beauty and truth and 
the respect for serious effort, the love of our country and 
the warmth of our home. And compared with all this it is 
only a small difference whether our historical knowledge 
leads back to George Washington or three thousand years 
further, and whether our mathematics ends with the mul- 
tiplication table or with the differential calculus. Above 
all, the ideal of culture remains the same for all of us. 
One comes a few steps nearer to the ideal than another, but 
that which ultimately counts is not the point which we 
reach but the forward movement. 

Yes, nothing could be worse for the educational system 
than if this unity of the national educational principles 
should have to yield to the mere variety of individual de- 
mands. Certainly we must have an adjustment to the 
personal tasks, but it must remain an adjustment on a 
common basis. Our time is by far too much threatened by 
weak concessions to individual fancies and desires. As long 
as pedagogy was backed by no better conviction than the 
idea of the greatest pleasure for the individual, there was 
no strength left to resist the pressure of the child's desire. 
Every little variety of interest, every inclination and dis- 
inclination could insist upon a particular programme which 
would give to everyone just what he liked. Every passing 
fad and every superficial mood of children and parents 
could control the educational workshop. But as soon as 
the deeper insight into the true domain of education shows 

73 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

the relation of the school to the system of ideal values the 
unity of the work will again be more in the foreground. 
The likings of children are many ; their duty is, after all, 
only one. It is not the task of the school to entertain the 
children; the true task of the school is to teach them to 
do their best. Thousandfold indeed is the material which 
the different men have to master if they are to fulfill their 
life tasks; and yet all this will be learned swiftly and 
gladly as soon as school has taught them the one great 
common lesson, that the best of life is work, and that 
work means effort. Nowadays too many leave the school 
with a smattering of rainbow-colored information ; and yet 
they have not learned what they most need for their true 
life, the power to acquire and to master that which de- 
mands the effort of concentrated attention. They have 
learned by play, and have become unfit to learn when the 
play is over. 

To no small degree the same holds true for the teacher 
as well as for the pupil. No doubt, every teacher's task 
is a particular one. An unlimited manifoldness of spe- 
cial interests and duties shades the work of the teachers. 
They, too, come from different conditions, with different 
gifts, with different dominant interests, with different 
preparations for different periods of service, with differ- 
ent anticipations. The high-school teacher with the col- 
lege education may feel himself superior to the primary- 
school teacher who comes from the normal school. The 
male teacher may draw a demarcation line between himself 
and his female colleague, the teacher of natural science 
may feel as if his ways are widely parted from those of the 
teachers of the classics, and both feel as if they have noth- 
ing in common with the teacher of music or drawing or 
gymnastics. Social and local factors, age and training, and 

74 



THE PERSONAL FACTOR 

salary and family may bring numberless variations; and 
yet ultimately they are all unimportant and insignificant. 
There exists only one great division — the teachers who are 
true teachers and those who are not. Those who are true 
teachers live and work and struggle and succeed in a faith- 
ful belief in the ideal values of their work. To them the 
souls of those boys and girls are like beautiful marble from 
which they have to shape ideal forms. With love and sym- 
pathy they forget themselves and live for those children 
whose happy souls have been intrusted to their devoted 
work, and in every lesson, in every word, and every glance 
they express that enthusiasm for the ideal which gives 
meaning to their difficult mission. 

There must be many kinds of teachers and yet the true 
teacher is everywhere the same. Just as there are creeds 
and denominations without number, and yet ultimately one 
eternal religion at the bottom of all of them, so many forms 
of the art of teaching may be learned, but fundamental 
remains that one common belief in the absolute value of 
the teacher's mission. The loyalty to the ideal values of 
life for which a new fighter and a new servant is to be won 
with every new boy and every new girl who enters into the 
class room is the common faith of every man and woman 
in the school. Not everyone is talented and not everyone 
is prepared to be a successful teacher. The good teacher 
cannot know enough and cannot train himself seriously 
enough, and yet no training and no knowledge can be a 
substitute for that true teacher's attitude. 

But we have no right to ignore the other side. Teach- 
ing is a practical work in which the means must be adapted 
to the end. Enthusiasm and the idealistic belief can only 
bring the powers into motion and furnish energy, but the 
means must be provided. The teacher must know what he 

75 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

is to teach and must know how to teach it, and that in- 
volves his understanding the child and all the factors which 
come in question when the child is dealt with. Hence, the 
true teacher needs not only an understanding of the pur- 
poses and aims of education and an enthusiastic devotion to 
those ideal aims, but he needs a thorough understanding 
of the ways in which the mind of the child can be influ- 
enced and developed. Ethics could teach us only those 
purposes and ideals. If the teacher seeks insight into the 
means by which the aim can be reached, into the facts by 
which the child can be molded, his way must lead from 
ethics to psychology. 

The knowledge of the child's nature and his personal 
tendencies, indeed, has not been made superfluous by in- 
sight into the ideal aims. On the contrary, if we want 
to bring a child to the realization of values, we must have 
the clearest understanding of the child's natural endow- 
ments, his gifts, and his possibilities, of the mental and 
physiological laws and the sociological conditions. Every- 
one has to serve the world of values in his own place with 
his own means, and this ideal task demands the highest de- 
gree of respect for the individual differences of men. Sys- 
tematic effort on the part of the teacher is surely needed. 
To live according to nature, to follow one's own inclina- 
tions and interests, to satisfy the personal pleasures and 
thus to fulfill the personal purposes — and it is these which 
appear to popular prejudice as the only " natural " ones — 
no great effort is needed. Water flows downhill, anyhow, 
but to bring the water uphill hydraulic forces are indeed 
necessary. To overcome nature and instead to prepare for 
a life of ideals, to inhibit the personal desires and instead 
to learn to serve the higher purposes indeed demands most 
serious and most systematic efforts. 

76 



THE PERSONAL FACTOR 

It is the teacher's task to make these efforts with all 
his best knowledge of mind and body, of social and of cul- 
tural values. Psychology and physiology, sociology and the 
subjects taught have to furnish him with the equipment for 
his great calling, but they all represent only the means, 
which are of no use until ethics has shown us the aims. 
Those means the teacher must master by study and knowl- 
edge, but those aims he must hold in his heart. They 
fade away if he does not believe in them with the sincerest 
conviction because, as we saw, those ultimate ends of ethics 
are not to be reached by knowledge but by decision of will. 
What aim he shall give to his educational work depends 
for the teacher, too, upon his decision as to what meaning 
he wants to give to life, and that ultimately depends upon 
his decision as to what kind of human being he wants to 
be. True teachers are those who have decided that life is 
worth living only if it is upborne by the belief in the 
ideal values. But if the belief is to become effective, it 
must work with the world of facts. Hence, we must now 
turn from the height of the general tlieory to the walks of 
practical life, but we shall never forget that these facts and 
schemes and plans which we now have to study are held 
together and made significant by our ethical life phi- 
losophy. 



PSYCHOLOGICAL PART 
THE MIND OF THE PUPIL 



CHAPTER XI 

THE OBJECTIONS TO EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 

At last we have found the aims of true education, but 
nothing would be more superficial than to believe that with 
the aims we know at once the means. Not seldom in life 
it may be almost a matter of course to recognize the right 
aims and yet most difficult to discover the fitting means. 
The physician, for instance, is never in doubt that it is his 
purpose to bring about the normal functioning of the bod- 
ily organs, and yet he needs a whole array of sciences to 
find the proper means to that end. For the educator the 
end is not at all such a matter of course as for the physi- 
cian; we had to reject all kinds of pseudo-aims which sug- 
gest themselves and we had to go a long way through ethics 
to find our pedagogical purpose. But again, just as for the 
physician, it holds true that all the scientific knowledge of 
the day must be made serviceable to us in selecting our 
means and tools and methods as soon as the aim is recog- 
nized. 

Here, to be sure, psychology has the right to the first 
place. Education, we saw, must prepare the child for 
service to the world of values. That service is a work of 
the soul, a work of intellect and judgment, of knowledge 
and emotion, of character and will. Accordingly, the most 
immediate material for the teacher's effort is the mind of 

81 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

the pupil to be molded. In this demand for psychological 
studies all theories of education may agree. 

Yet not a few difficulties meet us at the threshold. 
The teacher has to deal with the inner life of the child 
and has to understand it. But have we a right to say that 
the understanding of inner life is the same as the knowl- 
edge of psychology? Certainly not. And much confusion 
arises from overlooking this difference. When we dis- 
cussed the standpoint of science and of ethics, we saw that 
we can understand the mental life in two ways. The psy- 
chological way of describing and explaining the mental 
facts is only one of the two possibilities. We saw that it 
is not even the most natural and most lifelike aspect of 
mental experience. The more immediate way to the mental 
understanding of our friend is to think with him, to feel 
with him, to will with him and thus to understand him by 
interpreting his meanings and intentions. This alone is 
indeed the way in which we approach our neighbor in 
daily life. When we talk with him, when we agree or 
quarrel, we understand one another by taking the stand- 
point of the other person and imitating his inner experi- 
ence. Such interpretation of our friends is not psychology. 
It is a relation in which the other mind remains a per- 
sonality in his full unity. Psychology, on the other hand, 
seeks to describe and to explain these mental experiences. 
It must divide them into parts and elements and classify 
them and seek their causes and effects. 

It is clear that sometimes the one and sometimes the 
other way of understanding mental life must be preferred. 
I think of two extreme cases. In one I see on the street a 
child whom I do not know behaving strangely and I suspect 
that he is mentally deranged. At once I necessarily take 
the attitude of the observer, of the explaining psychologist, 

82 



OBJECTIONS TO EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 

• 
I watch the special mental features, separate the single 

functions, observe the effects of various conditions on the 
emotions and feelings and ideas of the child and feel it my 
duty to follow his behavior with scientific carefulness. At 
the other extreme I think of how I talk with my own 
child in mental health and strength here in my room and 
the father's love reaches out to the happiness of the young 
soul. How absurd it would seem to me to observe this 
mind and to disentangle it into its different parts. My 
warm enjoyment grasps the young personality as a whole 
and feels with its emotions. There we have the atti- 
tude of a scientist, here the attitude of life, there impar- 
tial observation, here personal interest, there explanation, 
here appreciation, there search for causes and effects, here 
understanding of the unity of purpose, there psychology, 
here sympathy. 

Between these two extremes there must be an endless 
number of steps and for the most part it will be quite pos- 
sible to take either attitude toward anyone. I may dis- 
cuss a question with an acquaintance and take the purpo- 
sive standpoint as long as I am carried on by the interest 
in the point in discussion. I try to understand the mean- 
ing of his argument. But in the next moment I may be 
watching how the man's memory is working and how his 
attention shifts and how certain associations cluster to- 
gether in his mind and how he inhibits certain ideas : in 
short, I may psychologize. And accordingly my own 
action, too, will change. At first I was anxious to con- 
vince by means of opposing arguments ; logical purpose de- 
termined my reply. But as soon as I begin to analyze and 
observe my opponent's mind in a psychological way, I 
choose my words and suggestions in order to influence his 
various mental functions. I deal with him as if I were 

83 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

handling a machine, I touch some ideas, strengthen some 
others, and suppress still others. 

The teacher, too, can take both attitudes toward the 
children in the class room. For him these boys and girls 
are, on the one hand, personalities, for whose aims and in- 
terests he feels sympathy or disapproval. He is anxious to 
understand their very selves and their outlook into their 
little world, to enter as a friend into their pleasures and 
disappointments and to make them feel his own interest in 
them. And, on the other hand, he may consider them like 
a psychical mechanism, watching how the mental wheels 
turn, and studying how the best effects may be reached. If 
he interprets a great poem in the class room, he will be 
filled and inspired by the belief that his enthusiasm will 
kindle those young hearts, that his emotion will reach 
theirs, and his idealistic enjojmient of the poet will touch 
them the more deeply the more he looks on them as real 
personalities and sticks to the purposive attitude. On the 
other hand, if he gives them the same poem to learn by 
heart, he may rather ask himself how much their unde- 
veloped memories can carry, whether their attention will 
be sufficiently held, whether fatigue has set in, whether 
they will do better to learn it line by line or to repeat 
whole stanzas, whether they will retain it better by seeing 
the verses or by speaking them ; in short, he will now pre- 
fer to take the psychological attitude. 

But the question arises: Is a teacher able to alternate 
between two such different attitudes toward the same per- 
sons? Of course we have to change our attitudes in life 
often, even toward the outer things. The tree which I see 
before my window may interest me by the beauty of its 
branches and its aesthetic harmony with the landscape. In 
the next moment I may be scientifically interested in these 

84 



OBJECTIONS TO EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 

same branches from a botanical point of view. Or I may 
consider this tree from an economic point of view with 
reference to its value as wood for the fireplace, or from 
a practical point of view as a fit place for my hammock. 
In this way we may easily change attitudes. And yet, is it 
not a well-known experience that attitudes become habitual 
and that training in one kind almost excludes or at least 
somewhat inhibits other kinds? Since the painter has 
trained his eye to see the trees from an aesthetic viewpoint 
and the naturalist has trained himself in the botanical at- 
titude, it is most improbable that the painter will easily go 
over to the scientific view of trees or vice versa. But this 
suggests a grave problem. Can we hope that the teacher 
will remain able to alternate between the two attitudes 
toward the child ? Will not the training in the psycholog- 
ical method of looking on the child disturb the natural at- 
titude of love and sympathy and personal interest? Can 
we feel with the child if we are in the habit of observing 
him as a psychological mechanism ? 

We have reached a serious argument which psychologi- 
cal pedagogy has to face. From all sides we hear the cry 
that the teacher ought to know more psychology, but are 
we sure that the real success of this reform may not mean 
a defeat of the most important instincts in the teacher? 
As long as psychology means only dead text-book knowl- 
edge, it cannot interfere with the personal interests of pa- 
rents and teachers. But if it becomes a really practical as- 
pect, if the child and pupil is looked on as a combination of 
elementary mental functions and everything turns into a 
scientific calculation, then, indeed, too easily may the im- 
mediate personal relation of man to man suffer by it. The 
strong, versatile teacher may be able to combine both meth- 
ods and to develop the one without injuring the other, but 
7 85 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

the average mind lives in one-sidedness. Surely society 
cannot tolerate our training artificially the power of psy- 
chological analysis and at the same time drying up the 
springs of love and sympathy, of interest and enthusiasm 
in the nursery and the schoolroom. The turn to psychology 
should be taken with carefulness and moderation, unless 
we are to lose more than we gain. 

Society should even take care lest the movement toward 
psychological training of teachers be responsible for 
another calamity. The schools of the country show too 
many serious symptoms of weakness and inefficiency; the 
community is anxious for a real cure of the evil and not 
for a superficial treatment of a few s)miptoms only. The 
diagnosis of the real cause of weakness is not always easy, 
but in most cases it lies, as far as the teaching staff is con- 
cerned, in the poor preparation of the teachers. They have 
not laid a sufficient basis of solid knowledge for their teach- 
ing; they give out knowledge at a stage where they ought 
to be taking it in. The cure which the social physician 
ought to prescribe is thus an uplifting of the whole intel- 
lectual schooling of the teachers. But that is a slow and 
difficult cure — and the public always prefers the quick and 
convenient patent medicines which for the moment abol- 
ish the outer symptoms, even if they do not help the dis- 
ease. To lay a broad foundation of knowledge demands 
years — to pick up some psychology and pedagogy is a mat- 
ter of months. 

The war cry of the reformers for better pedagogical- 
psychological training of the teachers thus too easily di- 
verts the public attention from the other reform which 
demands much more effort and sacrifice. The public is 
always satisfied if something is done which makes a quick 
showing. Hence, the common-sense desire that the teacher 

86 



OBJECTIONS TO EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 

should study psychology may become a fad which inhibits 
the progress in the real intellectual and scholarly training 
of the teaching staif. Of course, if the situation is well 
understood, here again the one does not interfere with the 
other. It is most desirable that the teacher should know 
psychology and understand the principles of education — 
and yet it remains at the same time desirable that he 
should reach the highest possible level of intellectual cul- 
ture and that he should not be obliged to cram in a hasty 
way overnight what he has to teach the next morning. 
More than that, the better he understands the facts of 
psychology and education, the more he will himself feel 
the need of deepening his scholarship. The true solution 
is neither animosity and disdain for psychology nor en- 
thusiastic belief that psychology and pedagogy can be a 
substitute for true scholarship. 

The psychological study of the teacher is thus to be 
welcomed without reluctance only if it does not interfere, 
on the one side, with the emotional attitude of personal 
interest, on the other side with the solid training in those 
studies which the teacher is teaching. But if these two 
conditions are fulfilled, is the way to the practical applica- 
tion of psychology really open? On the threshold let us 
not underestimate the difficulties. To know the facts of 
psychology in the text-book form and to apply them to the 
particular boys and girls in the particular classroom in the 
particular recitation hour is a very different thing. To 
know physics is not to know engineering, and even to know 
engineering from a technical book is not to be able to enter 
into competition with a trained practical engineer. Mental 
life is extremely complex, and yet our psychological laws 
refer to the single elements into which the whole mind 
must be resolved before the laws can be applied. A certain 

87 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

analytic skill and talent seems indispensable if confusion 
and arbitrariness are not to set in. 

Moreover, the teacher works under most unfavorable 
conditions for a technical and systematic application of 
psychological laws. The first need for such a purpose is 
surely a certain insight into the psychical individuality. 
The children in the classroom represent widely different 
mental types, with different temperaments and capacities 
and tendencies and experiences and powers. To disen- 
tangle these individual differences seems the first step 
toward a successful application of mental rules. But the 
experimental psychologist knows well that such work de- 
mands all the most exact means of science. Long series of 
tests and observations are necessary to determine com- 
pletely the " personal equation ^' of a human mind by the 
methods of modern psychology. It would too often be hope- 
less to expect such scrutiny in a classroom : the teacher has 
to rely mostly on general impressions, without subtler 
shades. Vague labels, like clever and stupid, industrious 
and lazy, good and bad memory, attentive and distracted, 
and similar generalities, are taken as the basis for the psy- 
chological work of the teacher, while the professional psy- 
chologist would discriminate a hundred varieties and de- 
grees and peculiarities in every one of these tendencies. 

With the vagueness of the starting point, on the other 
hand, the danger increases that the application of the psy- 
chological knowledge may be ineffective or even dangerous. 
Eules which fit one type of attention may ruin the work of 
some one whose attention is of a different order. We may 
dream of a future state in which a psychological expert will 
examine every school child's mind with all modern meth- 
ods in a scientific way, just as the physician nowadays 
often examines the body of the pupil before he begins exer- 

88 



OBJECTIONS TO EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 

cising at the gymnasmm. But at present the teacher has to 
be his own psychological expert, and, with his fifty or more 
pupils, can hardly hope to reach a mental diagnosis which 
satisfies himself under the conditions of the classroom in 
the overcrowded school hours. Thus, on the whole, he will 
confine himself to the use of those psychological facts 
which he can take over ready-made, as they fit in general 
without any subtle analysis. Many of the most delicate 
methods of science would be practically useless for his 
daily work, unless the classroom is to be transformed into a 
psychological laboratory. The teacher must be clearly 
aware from the start that he is confined to a rather crude 
and clumsy use of the facts which scientific psychology 
may offer in aid of pedagogical efforts. 

But this finally leads to the most important question: 
Has psychology really accumulated a good store of such 
helpful facts ? It is with regret that every sincere ps3'cholo- 
gist must answer : no, we are just at the beginning. What 
we have to offer is not to be despised; it is a fair begin- 
ning — but, after all, no more, as psychology is only just 
commencing to connect the theoretical studies with the 
practical interests of the community. At the first glance 
this seems surprising and disappointing, but it could hardly 
have been otherwise; and it is this slowness of the move- 
ment which insures its safe progress : all haste would have 
been dangerous. 



CHAPTEE XII 

THE APPLICATION OF PSYCHOLOGY 

When the public speaks of the " new " psychology as if 
it were a creation of yesterday, or as if the break with the 
past has been complete, it is voicing a shallow exaggera- 
tion. Plato had deep psychological insight, and Aristotle 
wrote a psychology which, in some respects, laid lasting 
foundations. Even the influence of the natural sciences on 
psychological thought is not a recent gain. It can be 
claimed that since the seventeenth century the mechanism 
of the system of nature was the model for the psychological 
speculations of great thinkers like Hobbes and Spinoza. 
The intimate relations between mind and brain engaged 
Descartes at the threshold of modern times and determined 
much of the philosophical work of the eighteenth century. 
Large regions of mental life were most carefully anal)^zed 
by men like Locke and Hume and Berkeley in England, or 
Leibnitz and Condillac and Herbart on the Continent. It 
would be folly to claim that the new psychology had to 
begin anew and arrogance to insist that our new methods 
have brought us to a height from which we can look down 
on those earlier achievements. 

And yet we are accustomed to date a new period from 
about the sixties of the last century. There is no doubt 
that in these few decades more psychological material has 
been studied and more psychological facts have been dis- 

90 



THE APPLICATION OF PSYCHOLOGY 

covered than in the preceding two thousand years of the 
history of psychology. In these few decades psychology 
became an independent science, with full right to stand co- 
ordinated with physics or chemistry and to a high degree 
emancipated from speculative philosophy, under whose 
wings it had previously dwelt. The most decisive factor 
in this fruitful change was surely the introduction of the 
experimental method. Experiment had built up the won- 
derful edifice of modern natural science, while the lack of 
experiments had kept the science of antiquity and of the 
Middle Ages on the lowest level. Experiment had created 
physics and chemistry and physiology, and in the first 
half of the nineteenth century it led from triumph to tri- 
umph. But still it had not reached the mental life. Hap- 
hazard observations and chance experiences furnished the 
material for the psychologist, while experiment everywhere 
demands that the observations shall be made under artifi- 
cial conditions, introduced for the purpose of careful ob- 
servation. 

The change did not really come from psychological 
quarters. The decisive impulse originated from without. 
It was a period in which physiology, the study of the bodily 
functions, flourished. The scientific study of the nervous 
system and of the sense organs made marvelous strides 
forward, and the functions of the eye and ear especially 
were brought into new light by the physiological experi- 
ments. Yet it is evident that experiments on the bodily 
eye and ear are necessarily at the same time experiments in 
seeing and hearing; psychological facts thus became, in a 
way, the by-products of the naturalistic researches. In a 
similar manner, physiological studies on skin and muscles 
brought with them experiments which referred to the men- 
tal functions of tactual and muscular sensations. Psychol- 

91 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

ogists were thus furnished with experimental evidence 
which they had not gathered themselves, but which they 
no longer had a right to ignore. Even astronomy brought 
a new impulse. The astronomers found that they did not 
always agree in their records of observation in the tele- 
scope ; the one saw a star a fraction of a second earlier than 
the other. Then they began to experiment on the question 
of how much time is lost by the mental action of perceiving 
and attending to the star and recording the impression by 
a registering movement. These experiments in the service 
of astronomy were the first by which the time of mental 
processes were studied ; and here again the psychologist got 
from without an experimental suggestion, the importance 
of which for the analysis of the mind was clear. 

Thus it seemed a most natural step when at last the 
psychologists themselves fitted up a workshop for making 
such experiments of psychological import on their own 
account and from their own point of view. That which 
had been a by-product of the naturalists was now to become 
the chief aim. The first of these laboratories was founded 
y by Wundt in Leipzig, Germany, in 1875 — it was the act by 
which psychology signed its declaration of independence. 
It was a modest beginning, but the development was rapid. 
The pupils of Wundt and their pupils carried the move- 
ment round the world. Every year saw the foundation of 
new laboratories, with better and better equipments. At 
present nearly one hundred university laboratories in all 
civilized countries minister to the progress of experimental 
psychology. 

Yet, more brilliant than this outer development of the 
young, experimental science was the internal growth., 
When experimental psychology took its first steps, it 
seemed a matter of course that such work with instruments 

^% 



THE APPLICATION OF PSYCHOLOGY 

in a laboratory would reach only the most external prob- 
lems of the inner life — those which refer to the sensations 
and perceptions and motor impulses. But the real central 
functions of the mind seemed beyond the devices of the 
laboratory and open only to the traditional introspection. 
The work of the last three decades has led to a steady re- 
vision of this prejudice. The experimental method has 
conquered one field of the mental realm after the other. 
Experiments have been made on memory, attention, im- 
agination, feeling, emotions, volitions, judgment, reason- 
ing, aesthetic appreciation — in short, ever new psychical 
facts have been scrutinized with the methods of the experi- 
menter; and to-day it may be said that there is hardly a 
mental state to the analysis and explanation of which ex- 
periment has not contributed its share. 

Yet the work of our psychological laboratories, while it 
stood in the center of the great movement, certainly did 
not stand alone. The relations of the mind and brain were 
at the same time brought into a new light. With the dis- 
covery of the speech center in the cortex, a center which 
shows signs of disease when the patient loses the power of 
speech, the new doctrine of definite brain localization se- 
cured its glorious development. This was no longer the 
old, unscientific phrenology, but a systematic study of the 
special mental functions related to special fields of the 
cerebral nervous system. Parallel with it came the progress 
of animal psychology on the background of modern theories 
of evolution, and, still more revolutionary, the progress of 
abnormal psychology, with the deep psychological interest 
in the borderland phenomena, like hypnotism, and finally 
the more modest progress of child psychology and social 
psychology. Thus, from the sixties of the last century to 
the beginning of the new century the world witnessed a 

93 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHEE 

growth of the new psychological science which was not to 
be compared with the slow and clumsy development of psy- 
chology in the two thousand preceding years. It is typical 
that fifty years ago there existed not a single magazine de- 
voted to psychology, while there are fifteen such journals in 
the leading countries to-day. 

Yet, the proud achievement of modem psychology was 
in one respect surprisingly narrow. It could hardly be 
called a conscious intention of the psychologist, and yet it 
seemed almost a purposive principle: the new psychology 
confined itself for decades to purely theoretical work, 
abhorring all concern with service to practical problems. 
We call it surprising, as, after all, the material has thou- 
sandfold connections with the needs of the day. Feelings 
and emotions, ideas and volitions, attention and memories 
enter into every sphere of human life, and yet those 
who described and classified and analyzed and explained 
these states did not care to ask whether the new insight and 
the new explanation did not yield any suggestion for prac- 
tical help and improvement. 

This is certainly not a matter for opprobrium. A 
sound, scientific policy demanded such a conservative 
method. It was absolutely essential that the fundamental 
investigations be made at first without any idea of later 
practical application. It may be and is unjust to denounce 
a science as utilitarian, or perhaps even as commercial, if it 
turns to practical problems; but the blame is fully de- 
served, if any science turns to practice before the theoret- 
ical foundations are laid. There is nothing more reckless 
than to take fragments of an unsafe, new doctrine and 
turn them into practical remedies. The wonders of ap- 
plied physics and chemistry demanded the faithful work of 
generations of physicists and chemists, who did not dream 

94 



THE APPLICATION OF PSYCHOLOGY 

of the patent oflBce, but simply tried to unveil the hidden 
laws of nature for truth's sake. 

But now, at last, the time seems to have come when 
psychology may dare to approach the practical problems, 
too. As by a silent agreement, practical endeavors have 
suddenly been initiated from all sides within the past few 
years, and everything indicates that we shall soon have a 
real, substantial Applied Psychology. And then such an 
applied psychology would no longer be a mere heaping up 
of such bits of theoretical psychology as could possibly 
be utilized for practical purposes, but it would be a system- 
atic studying and experimenting with mental facts from 
the point of view and in the interest of practical needs. 
Applied psychology would thus stand in just the same rela- 
tion to the ordinary psychology as that in which engineer- 
ing stands to physics. It would deal exclusively with the 
question: How can psychology help us reach certain 
ends? 

We have said that the work has been begun on many 
sides. Important, for instance, is the well-known effort to 
utilize psychology for the purposes of law. No doubt it is 
regrettable that to-day the court trial, perhaps of a criminal 
case, is dependent upon the perceptions and memories of 
the witnesses, deals with the suggestions and emotions and 
volitions, and yet does not recognize at all that the psychol- 
ogist offers expert knowledge for the estimation of the wit- 
ness's capacities or of the mental states of the criminal. 
Psychological methods to measure the powers and the sug- 
gestibility of the witness, or to detect the hidden knowledge 
of crime, or to work toward prevention of crime, have been 
developed. In the same way the psychologist has system- 
atically turned to the problems of health. On the one side 
he devotes his resources to the analysis of the mental fac- 

95 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

tors in diseases, from a simple discomfort or dizziness 
or pain to the great disturbances of psychasthenia and 
neurasthenia, of double personality and hysterics, and 
finally of the mental diseases. The schemes and appli- 
ances of the regular psychological laboratory have disentan- 
gled symptoms which seemed vague and obscure from a 
mere medical standpoint. On the other hand, applied psy- 
chology tries to help in the treatment of the diseases. The 
acknowledgment of the mental elements in most patholog- 
ical states of the body has spread rapidly. The influence 
of suggestion in the treatment of mental and physical dis- 
abilities has been recognized within the medical profes- 
sion, and more still without. Modern psychology must 
turn this popular movement into scientific channels. 

Similarly as in the realms of law and medicine, applied 
psychology works in the field of social life, of business and 
commerce, of labor and industry, from advice for the writ- 
ing of advertisements or for success in salesmanship to 
the, most complex problems of the mill or the railway. 
Again, in the realm of pleasure and sport, of fatigue and 
rest, of fashion and food, psychology may shape its sugges- 
tions, as well as in the whole realm of fine arts and poetry 
and drama and music. In this great movement toward 
the application of psychology, education, of course, from 
the first found an important place. In the service of edu- 
cation, too, special experiments were conducted, special ob- 
servations were carried on. But it must be emphasized 
that it was indeed this new movement of the last few years, 
this systematic experimenting on problems of educational 
psychology with which psychology really took the turn 
toward pedagogy. Those preceding haphazard applica- 
tions of psychological facts which had not been studied at 
all from the point of view of education showed the way, 

96 



THE APPLICATION OF' PSYCHOLOGY 

but were entirely insufficient to build up an educational 
psychology. 

Hence, educational psychology, a product of the last few 
years, is a new science which forms a part of applied psy- 
chology, together with legal and medical and economic and 
aesthetic and industrial psychology. It is therefore much 
younger than the theoretical " new " psychology, which, 
after all, has now had three or four decades of development. 
Educational psychology is entirely at its beginning, and is 
unable to offer any complete system of prescriptions or ad- 
vice. As it had to wait for its start until the theoretical 
work of the psychological laboratories was fairly under 
way, it cannot compare with the richness of general psy- 
chology. And yet it must rely on its own resources. Sim- 
ply to take over the ready-made material of general psy- 
chology would be useless. Psychology has certainly made 
thousands of experiments, for instance, on attention; yet 
it would be doubtful if any of these experiments could be 
carried directly over into the classrooms and conclusions 
drawn from them as to how the attention of the school 
children is to be secured. Those experiments were not car- 
ried on for practical purposes; they were made in order to 
understand the mechanism and the elements of attention, 
its physiological conditions, its relation to other mental 
states, and so on. It was necessary to vary these experi- 
ments in new ways and to make them serviceable for the 
teacher. 

A start has been made, however, and, no doubt, from 
humble beginnings a true educational psychology will soon 
arise. Yet it would be worse than superficial to separate 
such suggestions of educational psychology from the back- 
ground of general psychology. The teacher must con- 
stantly refer the special facts to a consistent theory of the 

97 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHEE 

whole; only if he sees psychology in the right perspective 
can he coordinate the various special results. For us, of 
course, it must be sufficient to take a bird's-eye view of the 
whole field and to consider the chief psychological princi- 
ples and facts that ought to be familiar to the teacher. 



CHAPTER XIII 



MIND AND BRAIN 



What are the parts of which mental life is composed ? 
The obvious answer is, of course, feeling, attention, will, 
memory, intellect, imagination, perception, and so on. This 
was the classical answer of the old " faculty psychology." 
But modern psychology cannot be satisfied with the enu- 
meration of such faculties, as if they really represented 
what actually goes on in any mind. For instance, ever 
new memory acts fill our mind; but nothing is gained by 
referring them to a general power, the Memory, which 
stands behind these single recollections. As there is not 
a general fish in water — a fish which is herring and eel 
and salmon at the same time — and still less a fish-forming 
faculty which produces the particular fishes; so there is 
no memory faculty, but only the single memory ideas. 

The situation is no different in the case of attention or 
will. Again, it is an empty abstraction to consider them 
as unities or as faculties. Just in these cases too often the 
old faculty psychology still lingers in popular discourses 
and in the schematic psychology of the teachers. There is 
no Attention, but an endless manifold of separate acts of 
attention each of which stands for itself and has its par- 
ticular content. And there is no Will, but only a chain 
of special volitions. Of course, as the botanist may form 
the conception flower or tree or fruit, we may and must 

99 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

form general groups, and thus bring all the volitions under 
one label, and all the attention acts under another, and all 
the memories under a third, but one will exists in the mind 
as little as one fruit power grows on the farm ; there are as 
many volitions in every mind as there are apples and pears 
in every orchard. 

Yet the single memories and perceptions and volitions 
and their kin are, after all, not real elements, as, of course, 
the scientist means by an element something which cannot 
be divided any further. For the chemist water is not an 
element, because it still can be divided into hydrogen and 
oxygen. A memory idea, or an imaginative idea, or a per- 
ception, or an abstract idea is therefore not an element, 
either, as we can discriminate a variety of parts in each. 
Such an idea may contain something blue and green and 
sweet and cold and smooth, and so on. The same holds true 
of those other mental states which are not ideas of things; 
emotions and feelings, too, can be resolved into parts. If I 
analyze carefully, I may feel in one emotion a certain ten- 
sion, and a contraction, and a shiver, and an impulse, and 
a pressure in certain joints, and a dryness in the mouth, 
and an onrushing thought; and every one of these parts 
may be analyzed still further. If I divide my parts until I 
come to bits of experience which can no longer be recog- 
nized as composites, I reach elements. For instance, a sin- 
gle tone of a certain pitch is an element. But then we see 
at once how endlessly large the number of such elements 
must be. A good ear may discriminate ten thousand dif- 
ferent pitches. But every one of these pitches may be 
given with any intensity, from the faintest to the loudest; 
and, of course, each intensity again gives a new element. 
Hence, modern psychology has to calculate with millions of 
psychical elements. 

«'« ^ 100 



UmB ANB BRAIN" 

These elements must be classified, but this is to a high 
degree arbitrary, and there is certainly much disagreement. 
The most usual way nowadays is to separate them into two 
large groups. Those elements which are parts of ideas we 
call sensations, and those elements which are ultimately 
parts of feeling we may call affective elements. Some psy- 
chologists would prefer to consider the last elements of the 
volitions also as a particular group, while the majority rec- 
ognize that the whole structure of a volition can be resolved 
into sensations and affections. Others, again, consider even 
the separation between sensations and affections super- 
fluous. They would say that what we call affections are 
still complex states, which can ultimately be analyzed into 
sensations. Sensations of our muscles and joints are here 
especially important. The chemists separate the inorganic 
and the organic substances in nature, and yet find that those 
inorganic bodies are composed of exactly the same elements 
as the organic. In the same way the psychologist may very 
well discriminate ideas and emotions, even though he finds 
that the ultimate elements of the emotions are the same 
from which the ideas are built up. But whether we dis- 
criminate two or three general groups or recognize all ele- 
ments as patterned after the sensation scheme, of course we 
must immediately form subdivisions. We have the sensa- 
tions of sight, or of hearing, or of touch, of taste and smell 
and temperature, of muscles and joints and tendons, of 
pain, and so on. Every text-book of psychology gives a full 
account of them. Here we are interested only in the prin- 
ciples. 

Thus the content of man's consciousness is a large mass 
of psychical elements clustered together in these groups, 
which we call our ideas, or feelings, or impulses, or percep- 
tions, or memories. And these, again, hold together in 
8 101 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

larger groups in our streams of thought, in our emotional 
volitions, in our self -consciousness, in our purposive plans. 
But the description of this manifoldness is certainly only 
the beginning of the psychological task. We must try to 
understand how these mental states arise and how they 
hang together; why the one brings the other with it and, 
again, why one suppresses the other; what the conditions 
for those mental states are and how they can be influenced. 
The teacher would have no possible interest in simply ana- 
lyzing the pupil's mind, if he could not hope for an under- 
standing of the coming and going, of the causing and ef- 
fecting, of the producing and changing within the mental 
content. 

The most superficial survey convinces us, however, that 
we cannot understand the appearance and disappearance of 
] the mental states without considering the processes of our 
body. Every perception shows us the way. We perceive 
the blue sky, that is, we have the mental sensation of blue- 
ness, but it disappears if we close our bodily eyes. More- 
over, the excitement of the eye is not sufficient. If the 
optical nerve, which connects the eye with the brain, is cut, 
the stimulation of the eye is ineffective. The light ray still 
reaches the eye, but there is no sensation in the mind. 
Furthermore, if the optical nerve is intact, but a hemor- 
rhage in the brain has destroyed the cells in the rear part 
of the brain, which is the end station of the optical nerve, 
then, again, the patient is blind to the stimuli of the eye. 
In short, the visual sensations occur only when a certain 
excitement of particular cells in the brain is produced, and 
the sense organ and the nerve are only a medium by which 
the outer world may reach these cells. The same holds 
true for all that we hear and touch, or for the organic sen- 
sations from the inner organs of our body. Every time the 

102 



MIND AND BRAIN 

stimulus reaches a particular group of brain cells. And 
the perception of a complex thing, with its colors, and 
form, and hardness, and temperature, and weight, and 
smell, demands the cooperation of many thousand cells 
distributed over the whole brain. 

Not only impressions from without but impulses to 
actions from within are evidently also bound up with 
brain excitement. Whether we walk, or speak, or write, or 
read, all the muscle activities obey our mental ideas. But 
these ideas work only if certain brain excitements are going 
on. Thousands of such impulses issue from the brain con- 
stantly. If our mind faints, we collapse : the lack of blood 
in the brain interrupts the impulses which continually go 
to all the muscles of our body. If the brain is asleep, no 
will is effective. A hemorrhage in certain centers of the 
brain makes us unable to start the right impulses. If our 
mind is excited by an emotion, a thousand processes in the 
body result — changes in the blood vessels, in the intestines, 
in the glands, like blushing and paling, perspiring and 
trembling. Yet all these bodily processes are dependent 
upon processes in the brain; hence the emotions, too, must 
be accompanied by brain excitements which resound in the 
whole body. In short, the mental states show most inti- 
mate relation to brain states in expressions, as well as in 
impressions. 

But it is easy to observe that this intimate relation be- 
tween mind and brain also exists where purely inner func- 
tions, like memory, attention, feeling, and thought are in 
question. In all these fields every influence on the brain 
has its counterpart on the mental side. If the brain is ex- 
cited by chemicals, like drugs, alcohol, tea, or by fever tem- 
perature, or by a disease of the brain itself, the mental life 
is always changed, from a slight retarding or facilitating of 

103 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

the stream of ideas to the deepest disturbances of the whole 
personality. Fatigue or exhaustion of the brain cells means 
change in the attention or memory; inhibition of growth 
of the brain means idiotic lack of mental development. 
Sleep of the brain brings that curious interplay of ideas 
which we call dreams; bad nutrition of the brain brings a 
change in the whole inner life. And all this corresponds to 
the results of animal psychology. The mental functions — 
memories, attentions, feelings — become more and more 
manifold and efficient the more the central nervous system 
of the animals becomes differentiated. 

Yet, even if the observations on normal persons, and on 
patients, on children, and on animals spoke loudly for 
the complete connection of mental states and brain 
processes, there would remain the possibility that at least 
some mental functions might be independent of bodily 
actions. Our ideas may be slaves of our brain. But has not 
our will, or our attention, or our imagination the power 
to switch our interest in the one or the other direction, 
to prefer or to reject the one or the other sensation, the 
one or the other deed ? Opposition, however, arises at once 
from the natural sciences. Their whole system is built up 
on the idea that no physical movement can have any other 
cause than again a physical movement. All processes in the 
physical universe are controlled by this demand. The fun- 
damental theory of the conservation of energy in the world 
is included therein. If I move my lips to say yes or no, it 
is a physical movement, and the whole endless chain of its 
causes must have gone on in the physical world. Thus the 
physicist, however far he may be from the actual demon- 
stration of the details, must postulate that those lips were 
moved to a yes because the brain processes made it neces- 
sary, and these brain processes depended upon the inborn 

104 



MIND AND BRAIN 

disposition of the nervous system and the trillions of influ- 
ences which have reached it since birth. No nonphys- 
ical influence would be able to intrude into this continuous 
series of physical causes and to change by mere mental 
power the yes into a no. As every mental state leads over 
into physical actions — it may be speaking, or reading, or 
merely turning the eyes, or holding the breath — every men- 
tal state must be accompanied by a physical process. 
Hence, the mechanical world's view of the natural sciences 
demands a complete parallelism of inner mental states and 
brain excitements. 

But some one might answer : Why is psychology to sub- 
ordinate itself to the natural sciences? The psychologists 
ought to build up the general theories from their own 
standpoint, and not ask what the physicists think about it. 
This is perfectly true. Yet the result is in no way differ- 
ent, if the psychologists look at the mental side only. The 
psychologist wants to explain those mental facts ; he wants 
to understand why one idea brings another idea, why the 
idea brings a feeling, why the feeling brings a will, and so 
on. But the psychologists must quickly discover that on 
the mental side alone there is no link to connect one mental 
state with another. The sight of a flower brings its name 
to my mind or awakes the will to pick it. But have we 
any means of explaining in a causal way how that sight 
idea and that word idea are linked ? Have we any insight 
into the mechanism by which the one pushes the other into 
consciousness ? We experience the one after the other, but 
we never understand how the one causes the other. On the 
physical side it is easy to understand the necessary connec- 
tions. Every atom of the physical world lasts and, in the 
view of the physicist, all the changes in nature are only 
changes of position. But all those sensations and feelings 

105 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

are ever new creations which cannot last. The pain which 
I no longer feel does not stay anywhere, but ceases to exist. 
The will which I no longer will does not remain as a psy- 
chical fact. Every mental state, as mere mental stuff, must 
be newly created in every new act. But how can we con- 
ceive of any necessary connection between such new and 
ever new creations ? In a system in which nothing lasts we 
are entirely unable to understand why the one feature 
comes after the other. From a strictly psychological point 
of view, we should be at a loss to bring any connection into 
this mass of mental experience. Thus, there is only one 
way open by which to get necessity into the mental play : the 
psychical must be linked with the mechanism of the physi- 
cal world. One idea brings another idea into consciousness, 
because the brain process which accompanies the first is 
connected with the brain process which accompanies the 
second. A certain feeling brings a certain will impulse, 
because the action of the cells which create the feeling 
flows over into other brain cells which give us the will. 
'Now, of course, the psychologist must presuppose that all 
mental states can ultimately be explained, as otherwise his 
task would be hopeless. He must therefore postulate that 
nothing can happen in the mind which is not completely 
determined by accompanying brain processes. 

This postulate is the real meaning of the theory of so- 
called psychophysical parallelism, the fundamental theory 
of modern psychological thought. It simply claims that 
there is no mental process which is not parallel to a 
physical process — that is, nothing can change in con- 
sciousness without there being a certain change in the 
brain. Of course there are endlessly many brain processes 
going on which have no mental accompaniment, but no 
conscious mental processes which do not have brain accom- 

106 



MIND AND BRAIN 

paniment. And again we emphasize : all this is not a mat- 
ter of mere observation, but it is a postulate, and just for 
that reason binding for everyone who seeks explanation of 
mental facts. 

At the very threshold we may warn against the misun- 
derstanding that such a view is materialistic and deprives 
mental life of its dignity. Let us not forget the meaning of 
psychology. "We saw that psychology was not an account 
of OUT immediate life reality. If we take life as we imme- 
diately feel it, then we do not know anything of a connec- 
tion between our inner experience and our brain. But in 
that naive life experience we have no demand for any ex- 
planation. We saw that there we do not know a causal 
point of view at all. Everything came in question only with 
reference to the purposes and aims. Our feelings and wills 
and ideas were not taken as a kind of mental stuff found 
in our consciousness and watched there like a procession of 
things. It is all an expression of our personality, and the 
only reasonable question is : What does it mean ? How can 
we interpret it ? IIow can we appreciate it ? That was the 
world in which we moved when we asked for the aims of 
teaching in the first part of our discussion. 

Now we have taken an entirely different point of view, 
acknowledging from the start that psychology is an artifi- 
cial way of looking at inner life, but a way which is useful 
and necessary for the purpose which we now have before us. 
It is the only way which is open to us, if we are to consider 
our inner life as causes and effects. And as soon as we 
start upon it, we must go on persistently. If it leads us to 
a perspective in which every mental state is an accompani- 
ment of a brain process, we must keep in mind that this re- 
fers to the inner life only in so far as it is looked on from 
this causal point of view of psychology. Moreover, let us 

107 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

not forget that the mental life itself, seen in such a special 
aspect, has no particular dignity and value. All the values 
of life came to expression only as long as we took life in 
its purposive aspect. Then our will really had a meaning 
and could devote itself to higher aims and ideals. As soon 
as we look on it as mental stuff, all these wills and feelings 
and ideas are nothing but things which we find in our- 
selves, no better and no worse than the things of the phys- 
ical world. The sensations and affections, as mental mate- 
rial, have no more dignity than the brain cells. No emo- 
tion ought to mislead us into resistance when psychology 
demands from us that we look on our friend and on our 
pupil as a psychophysical mechanism in which every men- 
tal state is the accompaniment of a physical brain process. 

On the other hand, such a psychophysical view by no 
means interferes with the demand for human freedom. Of 
course this demand has a very different character, accord- 
ing to whether we look on man from the point of view of 
immediate life experience or from the point of view of 
causal science. In our naive life, where we understand one 
another and know ourselves as centers of purpose and 
will, our freedom means that our will does not come in 
question in any reference to causes, but only in reference to 
purposes. There the question of causes has no meaning 
whatever. If we take the psychological attitude, of course 
freedom cannot demand a break in the causal chain, but we 
have a perfect right to call an action, or a decision, or a 
volition free if it results from an unchecked interplay of 
the energies of the brain. An action which results from 
force is not free. Nor is an action free which is produced 
by an abnormal brain mechanism — for instance, in fever, 
or in a brain disease, or under alcohol, or under hypnotism. 
The actor is not responsible for the outcome in such a case, 

108 



MIND A^^D BRAIN 

as his brain energies are not in normal cooperation with 
one another. Some brain parts are inhibited or disturbed. 
The accompanying mental states are therefore not the 
outcome of his whole life history. But if all his energies 
are at work, his freedom cannot suffer from the fact that 
the conscious motives and decisions are accompaniments 
of brain processes. These brain states, with their mental 
functions, constitute our personality, and our action is free 
whe^ the conditions for it lie in our complete personal de- 
velopment. 

This psychophysical view frees us at last from the 
old-fashioned narrowness of psychologists. They made a 
sharp demarcation line between the mental and the phys- 
ical facts, and therefore treated inner experiences, such as 
emotions, or volitions, or intellectual processes, or memo- 
ries, or judgments, as if the conscious facts were the whole 
story. Now we see that mental and physical facts belong 
most intimately together. Each of those states is mental 
and physical at the same time. Hence, we are better pre- 
pared to understand that each of those states also contains 
many physical processes which have no mental accompani- 
ment at all. That which enters into consciousness may 
even be a very small part of the whole process. If we hear 
a sentence, we may have very little more than the sound 
of the words and a few vague images in our consciousness ; 
and yet endlessly more goes on, inasmuch as our brain en- 
ters into an entirely new attitude. New paths open and 
connect with each other in the brain, and our personality 
thus becomes prepared for certain later actions in accord- 
ance with the meaning of that sentence. To understand it 
meant much more than merely the experience of those few 
mental states. It meant a complete change in the setting 
of our nervous system, and these great bodily alterations in 

109 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHEE 

thousands of our nerve cells cannot be separated from 
those other brain processes which are accompanied by the 
mental idea of the words. In the same way any emotion or 
volition is endlessly more than the mere mental experience. 
The whole nervous system may be influenced by that emo- 
tional wave and may have opened and closed channels of 
will and action which may become influential in later life. 
But all this has gone on in the physical part, while con- 
sciousness experienced only a small fraction of it. Hence, 
if we are in the midst of the causal view of mind, we 
must consider every single mental experience in its whole 
physiological setting. 

Thus we have gained a double insight at our first ap- 
proach to a modern psychology. The mental facts are parts 
of a psychophysical process ; no mental state occurs without 
accompanying bodily changes in the brain. Moreover, 
many further brain processes may belong to the whole state, 
although they have no mental accompaniment. Secondly, 
every psychophysical state is extremely complex. We have 
no simple faculties, no simple memories, and wills and per- 
ceptions, but an abundance of single acts, each one of 
which is composed of many psychical elements. Even the 
smallest mental experience must be conceived of as a most 
complex structure. Hundreds of thousands of elements 
may cooperate to build up the mental state of a child at a 
given moment. The teacher cannot put enough emphasis 
on each of these two facts. If he ignores the first, he will 
deal with the mental life as if it were a mere spirit, and 
will therefore neglect just those parts of the psychophysical 
process in which all the causal connections are going on. 
On this account he will from the start be ineffective in 
dealing with the child. If we want to inspire the child, and 
if we want to preach to him, we may ignore the bodily side, 

no 



MIND AND BRAIN 

but then the purposive view alone is in order. If we wish 
to have causal influence on his mind, our work must be a 
failure if we deal only with the mental half of the psycho- 
physical action. 

On the other hand, the teacher who ignores the endless 
complexity of the mental states and thinks of them only in 
those clumsy forms of popular psychology must also be 
doomed to failure. The more complex the teacher con- 
ceives the mental state to be, the more he will be able to 
control it. The subtlest influences may count, the faintest 
fringes of experience may be important. But when we 
are aware of this multitude of elements, the first impres- 
sion must be a chaotic one. As long as we try to under- 
stand the pupil's mind in a purposive way, all seems simple 
and clear. But as soon as we take the psychological stand- 
point we recognize that in every mental state hundreds of 
thousands of brain elements are cooperating, and that 
evefy thought embraces masses of psychical elements. It 
seems a hopeless task to attempt to bring order into this 
swarming, as long as we do not refer everything to some 
general underlying principle. Modern psychology finds 
this unifying principle in the biological aspect of man. 



CHAPTER XIV 



THE BIOLOGICAL ASPECT 



The analysis of the mental states and their bodily 
counterparts brought before us a bewildering manifoldness. 
We must seek a unifying principle. Of course we must 
not give up our psychological point of view, from which 
every mental state is a combination of many elements and 
each causally connected with others by the accompanying 
brain processes. But in the midst of such a psychological 
account of inner life we must try to relate the facts so that 
in their scattered manifoldness they may be recognized as 
the necessary parts of the life process of the individual. 

We saw that every idea, and emotion, and volition, every 
feeling, and memory, and imagination, and perception is 
parallel to a certain action in the brain. But we did not 
have any principle which explained the occurrence of these 
brain states, with their psychical accompaniments. Of 
course we might be satisfied with merely stating the fact 
that the brain passes through all kinds of excitements, but 
that simply means to be satisfied with a haphazard occur- 
rence which we cannot understand. All this suddenly 
changes as soon as we take a strictly biological point of 
view and consider these brain activities as organic func- 
tions which serve the ends of life. 

By that we do not leave the consistent standpoint of 
the scientific naturalist, for whom everything in the world 

113 



THE BIOLOGICAL ASPECT 

is the effect of causes. The reference to the ends of life 
does not mean at all a change of standpoint. It accepts 
only those principles of explanation which have shown 
their incomparable value throughout modern biology. If 
the biologist tries to explain causally the structure of a 
flower or of an insect, of a fish or of a bird, he connects 
the development of those tissues and organs with their use- 
fulness for the life of the organism. All that which is unfit 
for the conservation of the individual or its progeny must 
be eliminated under the conditions of natural existence, 
and everything which is well adjusted must be able to 
propagate itself. The biologist demands, therefore, with 
reference to the human beings as well that every function 
be explained by the service which it performs for the con- 
servation of man. Those millions of chemical processes 
which go on in the digestive apparatus of man became 
related to the ends of nourishing the body. 

What is the biological purpose of the brain and its func- 
tions ? Is it of any use to the life of man that excitements 
in the brain go on, and that as accompaniments mental 
states flash up? Such mere brain actrvity would be in 
itself as useless and worthless as the^eatmg of the heart 
would be if the heart had no connection with arteries and 
veins and if these blood vessels were not connected with the 
lungs. The real usefulness of the heart is bound up with 
the functions of that larger apparatus which carries the 
oxygen of the inhaled air to all the tissues of the body. 
From a biological point of view, the brain, too, can have its 
meaning only as part of a larger system. The brain has 
usefulness for the individual only in so far as it is con- 
nected, on the one side with the sense_organs, on the other 
side with the muscles. The arc which leads from the sense 
organs through the sensory nerves to the brain and from the 

113 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

brain through the motor nerves to the muscle system which 
moves the bones is a biological unity. Its work is really an 
achievement for the conservation of the individual. Its 
purpose is evident; it adjusts the body to the conditions 
of the surroundings. What would be the use of muscles, 
however well trained, if their actions should stand without 
relation to the outer world which makes itself known to the 
eye and the ear and the skin and the tongue and the nose ? 
What would be the use of all these sense organs, if im- 
pressions of the world were brought to man, but there 
were no motor apparatus to approach or escape, to select 
or to combine, in short, to act on the things of reality? 
And, finally, what would be the use of sense organs and 
muscles, if there were no brain to connect the impressions 
with the expressions, the centripetal paths with the cen- 
trifugal ? The brain is the great switchboard which trans- 
mits messages from the outside into impulses to reactions. 
Millions and millions of stimuli reach the brain, com- 
bine the effects, produce after-effects in the brain, and 
discharge themselves in motor responses millionfold. This 
transmission is just as necessary for the conservation of the 
organism, as its breathing and heartbeat and its nutri- 
tion. Even in its most complicated form it is only a 
steady differentiation of that which we find in lower and 
lower organisms. Microscopical infusors which consist of 
only one cell react in an adapted way on the stimuli which 
reach them in a drop of water. They approach the food 
by expansion, they escape the poison by contraction of the 
protoplasmatic substance. This fundamental, useful reac- 
tion with which animal life begins is only specialized in the 
higher forms. The surface of the protoplasm becomes ad- 
justed to the stimulus, and thus especially sensitive : sense 
organs are formed. Special parts of the substance be- 

114 



THE BIOLOGICAL ASPECT 

come especially contractible : muscles are formed. Special 
paths of transmission of the excitement from sense organ 
to muscle become isolated: nerves are formed. These 
nerves enter into connections to secure more complex trans- 
mission: a central nervous system is formed. These cen- 
tral parts become able to sum up the earlier excitements 
and thus to make the reaction a product of the individual's 
development and past experience ; and that means that the 
brain develops the possibilities of memory. From here 
new and ever new characteristics of the brain substance 
become differentiated. But even man, from the naturalis- 
tic point of view, is like the infusor in the drop of water, 
simply an organism in which the experiences are trans- 
formed into adjusted motor reactions. The central part 
of this nervous transformation is accompanied by the per- 
ceptions, memories, thoughts, emotions, and feelings which 
constitute our inner life. 

The chaos of brain cell functions and of sensations and 
affections is now completely organized. We understand 
their connections and developments in so far as we under- 
stand their necessary role in this process of motor reaction. 
The individual is an organism which adjusts its reactions 
to its surroundings. Everything which helps to that end is 
useful to the individual and the fact that it is useful makes 
it explainable by biological principles. A psychophysical 
process which has no reference to the adjusted reactions 
would be biologically superfluous and therefore beyond our 
causal understanding. But with this the whole aspect of 
man becomes new. 

Man is now no longer simply a receiver of the world's 
impressions and a thinker, but he is in the first place a 
performer of action. The doings of man determine his 
possibilities of experience. Our response to the world be- 

115 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 



^ 



comes a condition for the development of the brain proc- 
esses: our actions shape our knowledge. The old-fash- 
ioned view made it appear as if man received impressions 
and thought about them, remembered them, imagined new 
combinations, attended them, had feelings and emotions 
toward them, entirely independent of his decisions, voli- 
tions, and actions. The whole motor part appeared to be 
an unimportant appendix without which mental life might 
just as well take its course. Now everything is turned 
around. The attitude and action are now what give the 
real opportunity for the development of the central proc- 
esses. We think because we are acting. No part of that 
whole transmission process can be cut off. And just this 
biological unity which results from emphasis on the motor 
side of the process is full of meaning and significance for 
the pedagogical interests of the teacher. 

We must look into the mechanism of this apparatus 
more carefully before we turn to the special functions which 
constitute man's mind. We insist that the nervous system 
is a reacting machinery and that its fundamental function 
is to transform the impressions which the outer world 
makes on the sense organs into movements by which the 
body becomes adjusted to the surroundings. What are 
the most important steps to be taken in order to secure 
this effect? It is clear that a mere mechanical transmis- 
sion of a certain stimulus into a certain action would be 
entirely insufficient to reach the end which our compli- 
cated life demands. Millions of stimuli reach our senses 
and through them the sensory centers of our brain. In 
every moment thousands of motor impulses go to our 
muscles. But certainly there is no simple correlation. A 
most complex transmission must have been performed in 
that great automatic switchboard, the central nervous sys- 

116 



THE BIOLOGICAL ASPECT 

tern, made up of the brain and the spinal cord. What are 
the changes which go on? How does the brain transform 
the incoming impressions? 

The stimuli reach the brain through the sensory nerves. 
But our very first variation may be found in the fact that 
the impression which they make on the brain may last 
longer than the stimulus, or, on the contrary, may disap- 
pear while the stimulus is still going on. In the first case, 
the positive one, the psychologist speaks of perseverance ; in 
the second case, the negative one, of adaptation. A sight 
or a sound comes to our mind and, without any special 
reason, it pushes itself again and again into our mind 
even when the stimulus has stopped. A name or a melody 
may persevere in us. On the other hand, our clothes may 
touch our skin all the time and yet we have become 
adapted; we no longer feel them. The mere perseverance 
or adaptation thus changes the impression from the outer 
world. But this is only a small step. The next is much 
larger. 

The impression which stimulates our sensory centers in 
the brain may spread to other centers which have been 
stimulated together with the first in an earlier experience. 
The present impression awakes in the brain the whole 
earlier situation. A smell sensation of iodoform may 
awake the whole appearance of a hospital, if in an earlier 
experience we smelled that odor in a hospital room. A 
word which reaches our ear may suggest a whole landscape. 
A face may awake a whole life history. If we come down 
to the elements, we find that any two impressions which 
reached the brain together, or in such immediate succession 
that the first still lasted as brain excitement when the 
second set in, produce a certain change in the connecting 
path. Certainly every brain cell by its abundance of 
9 117 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

branches is somehow in indirect connection with every 
other brain cell. If now two are excited at the same time 
we may think that the path which connects the two be- 
comes a path of least resistance. Any future excitement 
of the one therefore flows over to the other. If the first 
is stimulated anew, the excitement of the second sets in 
and brings with it a reproduction of the earlier impres- 
sion. It is this which psychology calls association of ideas. 
The association, accordingly, brings it about that an im- 
pression awakes much more in our mind than the mere 
perception. 

Here, too, we may at once think of the opposite, the 
negative factor. Many impressions may come from the 
outside to our brain. We have, indeed, a negative proc- 
ess, if now not all can really enter into our experience, but 
if some, or most of them, are thrown out. It is in this 
sense the opposite of association. This happens if one of 
the impressions is especially strong and effective. It se- 
cures a kind of monopoly in the brain; it absorbs all its 
energies and drains them off from all those other centers. 
This is the state which we call attention. Whatever is 
in the focus of attention suppresses and inhibits all in- 
coming impressions. If we attend to our book, we do not 
hear the noises of the street. Association thus enlarges 
the incoming stimuli; attention reduces them. In the 
one case the sensory excitement spreads over the paths of 
least resistance; in the other case, it blocks the incoming 
impressions. 

Evidently, all this deals with sensorial impressions only, 
and it seems hardly in harmony with our previous claim 
that the sensorial processes are parts of reactions and are, 
therefore, intimately related to our motor activities. But 
have even those facts which we have mentioned been in 

118 



THE BIOLOGICAL ASPECT 

any way completely described? Indeed, may not the most 
important part still have been left out, however much the 
usual text-book psychology may rest its case with such a 
simple account? Have we really a right to say that the 
associations which our mind brings to us are merely the 
result of a haphazard spreading of excitements over sensory 
paths of least resistance and that attention is merely a hap- 
hazard cutting off of everything but one strong idea? 

In reality the situation is endlessly more complex, and 
above all, in reality there is no such chance performance 
going on. Any word which we hear stands in hundredfold 
connections. Anything which we see may bring up any 
number of associations. And yet in a particular situation 
only particular associations will arise. Thus it is cer- 
tainly more than a mere spreading. Every association in- 
volves a sifting, involves a selection of a few from the 
abundance which is at our disposal. Moreover, most of the 
associations are not even of that simple type of mere neigh- 
borhood in space and time. If I see a face, it may remind 
me of a name because that word and that optical impres- 
sion were once given to me together. But that face might 
just as well remind me of another face with which it has 
similarity and with which it never was together in my ex- 
perience. All those so-called inner associations where an 
idea brings to us other ideas with which it has relations, 
such as similarity or contrast, are more important for the 
progress of our thought than the mere external ones of 
space and time. Still more does it hold true of attention 
that everything depends upon particular selection. How 
arbitrary it is to say that only one idea is vividly attended 
to and everything else is suppressed because the nerve en- 
ergy is drained off. No ; we may attend a thousand things 
at the same time. We may follow a rich spectacle which 

119 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

has abundant content and we may superadd plenty of 
thoughts and reminiscences to what we see there. 

Indeed, this whole doctrine of mere spreading in asso- 
ciation and of mere draining off in attention needs one 
fundamental supplement, which is in reality the chief 
thing. That spreading or that draining is always deter- 
mined by the openness or closedness of the ways to a re- 
action. Anything which we perceive might bring up a 
hundred different reminiscences and ideas and emotions, 
but amon^ them only those which harmonize with the 
action which is going on have a chance to come to con- 
sciousness. On the other hand, the idea attended to does 
not exclude all the other ideas, but only those are excluded 
which would lead to a different kind of action. Everything 
is inhibited which would stir up an interfering activity. 
If we do one thing, our ideas spread over to such new 
ideas as reenforce that action and our ideas hinder and 
suppress all those ideas which would disturb the action. 

We can quite easily imagine how that happens. Let us 
think that an idea in our mind becomes vivid only if the 
brain excitement finds the channels of motor activity open, 
and remains unvivid and inhibited if those channels of 
motor discharge are closed. Then we have the whole situ- 
ation in full light. AYe have still to consider only the one 
fact which the biologists know well and which is suggested 
by practical experience, namely, that if we do one thing, 
the pathways for the opposite action are somehow closed 
in the brain. Each motor impulse has its opposite and the 
two exclude each other. We cannot open and close the 
mouth at the same time, we cannot stretch and contract 
our arm, we cannot close and open our hand, we cannot 
inhale and exhale, we cannot shout and be silent, we can- 
not sit still and jump up, we cannot nod and shake the 

120 



THE BIOLOGICAL ASPECT 

head, we cannot fixate a point and let our eyes wander, we 
cannot approach a thing and escape from it, we cannot fight 
a thing and submit to it. In short, whatever we do, the 
mere activity in our brain somehow closes the channels for 
the impulse to the opposite action. This is the most fun- 
damental fact of our whole brain activit}^ Without it our 
whole nerve life would be a chaos and an endless disorder. 
This mutual suppression of opposite actions is the one 
principle which brings order and regulation into the en- 
tire psychophysical system. 

If an impression comes to our brain and produces a 
reaction of turning toward the thing, then this very act of 
turning blocks all those channels which would lead to an 
impulse of turning in another direction. If now from 
that other direction an impression comes which ordinarily 
would push us toward itself, it finds the channels closed. 
Then it cannot become vivid, it remains inhibited, while 
everything which helps us to give importance to that to 
which we are turning will rush to the mind on the asso- 
ciational paths. The wider we open one channel of dis- 
charge, the more we exclude the impressions which would 
lead us in the opposite direction. The more intensely we 
read our book, the more easily we may fail to hear if some 
one knocks at our door. From these most trivial rivalries 
to the most complex and highest reactions of the person- 
ality, it is always the same story. We associate that which 
fits in with our action and suppress that which interferes 
with our action. Everything which changes our motor 
system thus indirectly changes our power to experience the 
world. 

Those activities and their changes are themselves of ex- 
tremely complex character; we may at least look out in 
a few typical directions. First the system of reactions 

121 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

changes through the many influences which decrease the 
resistance in the passageway. Of course every organism is 
born with a disposition for certain reactions, but life now 
molds this given disposition in every experience. Noth- 
ing can be more important than the influence of repetition, 
which characterizes all training and habit. If a situation 
frequently demands the same reaction, the transition in the 
brain becomes easier every time. But a similar result 
comes from an unusual strength of the impression which 
breaks open the path and perhaps once for all time over- 
comes the resistance. And what has most recently come to 
our brain may have left the path wider open for a while. 
Again we have negative factors at work. While a given dis- 
position may lead to a certain motor response, we may arti- 
ficially sidetrack the reaction. Thus we bring the given 
natural path into disuse. The impression comes to the 
brain, but before it goes over into the habitual track, we 
awake the idea of the opposite action, reenforce it and thus 
switch off the incoming current into the new outgoing path. 
And the result is that the neglected path slowly becomes 
closed. 

Besides this widening and closing, we have another 
variation which shapes our life in every instant. Those 
natural reactions can become enlarged by a circuit and can 
become abbreviated by a short cut. The enlargement hap- 
pens in this way. If an impression excites a reaction, 
this resulting movement gives us a sensation. For in- 
stance, we feel how our arm withdraws itself and this 
sensation of the resulting movement associates itself with 
the first impression. If now the first impression comes 
next time, that idea of the movement must set in by as- 
sociation before the reaction is completed. 'That means 
that the real movement is preceded by the idea of the 

122 



THE BIOLOGICAL ASPECT 

movement. Exactly that is the process which we call a will 
action. In every will action, the action to be performed 
is preceded by the idea of the action. The ordinary natural 
reaction, in which impulse simply follows impression, is 
accordingly enlarged in the will action by the idea of the 
movement preceding the movement itself. This enlarge- 
ment makes a great difference. The mere fact that there 
is a sensory excitement which anticipates the end to be 
reached by the action gives to the brain an opportunity to 
stir up all the associations which might lead to opposite 
actions. Only where the end is foreseen does the whole 
sensory system become responsible for the performance of 
the deed. 

On the other hand, we have the short cut. If an im- 
pression is stimulating an action in the highest layer of 
the brain, both the sensory and the motor way may lead 
through a number of stations. Now paths of least re- 
sistance which connect these lower stations may have 
formed themselves. The stimulus of the sense organ may 
accordingly flow over into the impulse to action before it 
reaches the highest centers at all. Then we have a reflex 
action. Our highest centers continually become disbur- 
dened by giving over their motor functions to the lower or- 
gans. We should be unable to write what we have to write 
if every movement of our fountain pen were not performed 
by reflex, that is without that conscious activity which we 
all needed when we first learned to write. 

Hence, we have the spreading to supporting movements, 
the suppression of opposite movements, the widening by ha- 
bitual movements, the closing by sidetracking movements, 
the enlarging by will movements, the abbreviation by reflex 
movements; and every change in the movements changes 
the conditions in the motor system and every change in the 

123 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

motor system changes the conditions for the vividness and 
suppression, for the appearance and disappearance of our 
impressions and their associations. The development of 
our reactions is our life history. Through them our inner 
experience is never a mere reflection of the outer world of 
present and past, but is an endless selection and combi- 
nation which takes its material from the impressions but 
its structure from our reactions. 

Is it necessary to warn against a grotesque misunder- 
standing, as if the development of life therefore depended 
on the amount of movements which we perform, as if the 
athlete would have the richest inner life, surpassed only by 
the acrobat of the circus ? This would be the most absurd 
caricature of the theory which we express. The motor re- 
sponses of the athlete are very few and are adjusted only 
to some elementary conditions of the outer world. The 
more civilized life grows, the more it becomes independent 
of the immediate surroundings. The mere pushing and 
shifting and grasping of the things around us becomes less 
and less important and our actions become more and more 
complex and related to signs and words. Above all, just as 
our actions become dependent upon all the experiences 
which preceded them, so they become directed also toward 
the totality of future events. The motor response then con- 
sists not in a muscle action, but in a new widening or 
closing of motor channels in the brain itself. Later actions 
become prepared in that way. Every judgment which we 
form is just such a preparation for a future action, every 
emotion is such a resetting of the brain by which all im- 
pulses to action are wiped out and only one particular at- 
titude becomes reenforced. The real outer movement may 
thus finally become a small part only in the reaction, inas- 
much as a strong thought may go on with its feelings, emo- 

124 



THE BIOLOGICAL ASPECT 

tions, and judgments, and yet the whole process be only a 
preparation for an action or the whole action may consist 
only of a few decisive words. But there is not and can- 
not be a psychophysical, and that means a psychological 
state which is not in its deepest meaning, from a scientific 
point of view, a link in the chain between impression and 
expression. The teacher who aims toward the psychologi- 
cal understanding of the pupil will never go entirely astray 
as long as he persists in this biological interpretation. Yes ; 
if we were to seek an expression for the most important 
truth which modern psychology can furnish the teacher, 
it would be simply this: the pupil is a reaction ap- 
paratus. • 
Of course no two such reaction instruments are alike. 
From the start every individual enters life with special 
pathways and connections in the nervous system, and with 
every breath throughout his life, he receives special combi- 
nations of impressions which transform the given paths in 
a million ways. The child, who for the first time meets 
his school-teacher, is an organism in which the inborn psy- 
chophysical dispositions have already been completely re- 
molded and reshaped and in which all typical functions 
have already reached a high degree of development. The 
boy and girl of six years stand psychophysically far nearer 
to the grown-up man and woman of twenty years later 
than they do to the newborn child. All the passageways 
between the sense organs and the muscle system have been 
opened and have been brought into effective shape. Per- 
ception, memory, attention, inhibition, feeling, emotion, 
volition are working together in adjusting the actions of 
the little one to his surroundings; and the spoken words 
already play an essential role in these surrounding influ- 
ences. Temperament and energy, talent and inclination 

125 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHEE 

show their varieties from the first year of life and every 
general sketch can refer only to averages. 

Yet there are certain typical regularities, especially in 
the succession of the various stages, however different the 
rhythm of the succession may be. In a newborn brain 
most of the nerve fibers lack the medullar sheath which 
makes them able to function. Only those systems and 
chains of neural elements are ready for work immediately 
after birth which are necessary for the first indispensable 
life functions, such as sucking and swallowing the offered 
milk. All the other brain tracts grow slowly into func- 
tional completeness and as soon as they are anatomically 
able to carry the nerve excitement along, the frequent 
functioning itself improves the ability. To be sure, even 
these first reactions for which the nervous mechanism is 
complete from the start involve a complex cooperation of 
motor organs. The infant who cries in response to the 
cold temperature on his skin works with a complex appara- 
tus. Yet the number of these completed paths of reaction 
is extremely small. The newborn child does not hear and 
the visual impression does not awake any organized reac- 
tions. Some organic sensations, such as hunger, disturb 
the motor equilibrium, but for a long while there are no 
tears and no smiles, no eye movements and no grasping 
activities. 

Everything that follows is a steady differentiation of 
this apparatus of reaction with its mental accompaniments. 
Part of the differentiation results from the internal growth 
which goes on in its own rhythm, but the larger part results 
from the impressions which demand that training and side- 
tracking, that enlarging and abbreviating, that combining 
and suppressing which we have characterized. The changes 
of life and the intentions of the home surroundings set the 

126 



THE BIOLOGICAL ASPECT 

stimuli which bring about this development. But, after all, 
the decisive period is to come; that is, the period of school 
life. The artificial stimuli which school and teacher, 
which work and words are offering to the mind of the 
pupil, play the strongest part in that formation which is to 
change the child into the future man and woman. 

We must keep this biological aspect steadily before our 
minds. We know and we ought never to forget that this 
psychophysical point of view is not the only possible one 
and that it is not under all circumstances a desirable one. 
We have fully discussed its relation to that most immediate 
point of view, that of the purposive life reality. But it is 
sure and clear, that, if we need psj^chology to determine the 
means by which we may reach our aims, we must be con- 
sistent and must really take the child as the scientist must 
see him. And if we emphasize that the immediate per- 
sonal attitude of real life demands from us that we always 
consider the pupil in the unity of his purposes, we may 
now insist that on the other side the biological psychologist 
must always consider the entire apparatus of the brain with 
the accompanying mental states also as a whole. This idea 
of the unity of the biological process must never leave us, 
if we now turn to the special parts and consider the differ- 
ent functions separately, beginning with the perceptions 
and leading through the central functions finally to the 
volitional part of the reaction apparatus. We must now 
study for each of them how they develop during those years 
of boyhood and girlhood and how they are individually dif- 
ferent and which characteristics are of special pedagogical 
importance. 



CHAPTER XV 



APPERCEPTION 



Pedagogues have insisted for a long while that the 
pupil must always be brought to a real perception of the 
world instead of learning merely those symbols and words 
and abstract conceptions which threaten to push them- 
selves into the foreground of education. It may be 
doubted whether there is very much wisdom in such an 
advice. We shall soon see that the advice is even necessarily 
unsuccessful, since our perceiving itself remains controlled 
by our conceptions. But whether the perception is really 
the starting point for pedagogy is not what we care for 
here ; we cannot doubt that it must be the starting point for 
psychology. The sense impressions are, indeed, the first 
material which the psychological stock-taking has to enu- 
merate. 

Even here begin differences between the child's mind 
and that of the adult, differences which are certainly not so 
fundamental as those in other regions and yet not to be 
overlooked. After all, the six-year-old child who enters 
school perceives every part of the surroundings in an infe- 
rior way. His color impressions, his tone and noise sensa- 
tions, his taste and smell sensations, his tactual and pres- 
sure sensations are less developed than those of the adult, 
and still more is this true of his perceptions of distances 
and of intervals, of forms and of rhythms, even where no 

128 



APPERCEPTION" 

meaning is attached to the object presented. The percep- 
tion of small differences is inaccurate and the complex im- 
pressions are perceived in fragments. The experiments of 
recent years have contributed much to the demonstration of 
the slow and very unequal growth of all the perceptive 
powers. They present a vivid warning against that too fre- 
quent teaching which believes that the child really perceives 
the sense objects in the way in which the teacher perceives 
them and that the words which refer to sense contents 
are really understood by the child in their full meaning. 
It would be hasty to draw conclusions from the unsuc- 
cessful effort of the children to sketch by drawing the 
things which they see. But in a certain degree even these 
drawings indicate the narrowness of the childish grasp. 
Most imperfect of all is the child's idea of time. 

In all this we abstract from those variations which re- 
sult from the deficiency of senses, for instance, from short- 
sightedness or from slight defects of hearing. These latter 
are by far too often neglected ; the child is punished for his 
carelessness, where the disease of his ear hinders a clear, 
acoustical understanding. But here we have to deal only 
with the normal child, and we have no reason to refer 
these normal deficiencies of childhood to any incomplete- 
ness of the sense organs. It is rather a brain difference if, 
for instance, we find that the color sense of the little boys 
is poorer than that of the girls or that, on the whole, the 
recognition of green and especially of yellow are still very 
uncertain at a time when red and orange are recognized. 
The central character of such shortcomings is all the more 
plain, as the experiment shows how much it can be 
changed by training. The period of school life must serve 
the training of the perceptive powers no less than other 
functions. 

129 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

It must not be forgotten that even here at the outskirts 
of psychophysical activity the motor process plays its funda- 
mental role. There is no perception of the lines and 
curves and forms in the visual field without eye movements 
from one point to another, no change in distance without 
change of the muscles which accommodate the lens and 
which regulate the convergence of the eyeballs. There is 
no perception of the rhythms and intervals of sound with- 
out changes and relaxations in the reacting organism. 
There is no examination of the surfaces which we touch 
without movements of our limbs. There is no perception 
of weight without contractions of muscles. Practically 
every perception involves our motor responses and every 
development of discrimination and distinction must work 
with the help of our activities. Hence every influence on 
our motor responses changes also the natural perception. 

Often only the subtlest understanding of these relations 
is able to avoid pedagogical mistakes. For instance, we 
hear nowadays that the school child ought to have stereo- 
scopes in the classroom, as the colored stereoscopic pictures 
render the plastic effect of reality. They offer to the two 
eyes just those retinal stimulations which nature in its 
three dimensions would give. But such arguments have 
left out the most essential part — the eye movements. It is 
easy to understand that the rotations of the eyeball related 
to the near pictures must be very different from those re- 
lated to distant nature. The result of this difference is 
that even the best pictures of the stereoscope must be per- 
ceived like little miniature models almost without any sug- 
gestion of real, wide vista. The consequence is, that the 
children very quickly get tired of them. If they see simply 
flat pictures, they never take them for reality and they 
turn with interest from one to another. But with their 

130 



APPERCEPTION 

stereoscopes the artificial plasticity suggests the attitude 
toward reality and yet the unnatural eye movements pro- 
duce a continual disappointment. The child plays with 
the new toy for a little while and then loses interest in 
the miniature models. 

Accordingly, every educational step demands the sub- 
tlest adjustment to the perceptive conditions, which are 
steadily changed by the inner growth and training. But 
do we not move in a sphere of abstraction, if we speak at 
all of perception here and try to remain aloof from the 
process of apperception ? This word, which has a long and 
eventful life history, has slowly become a sacred word in 
teachers' meetings. And more than other psychological 
terms it has tempted pedagogical theorists into a confusion 
between facts and prescriptions. V In contrast to perception, 
apperception means nowadays smiply that the sense ma- 
terial which we receive from without is awaking in our 
minds other mental material, especially memories, by 
which the new impression becomes linked with the con- 
tent of our mind. /If we hear a word in Chinese, we can- 
not apperceive it/as it does not awaken the ideas which the 
corresponding word in our mother tongue would have 
stirred up. Yet even that Chinese word may not remain 
entirely without apperceptive value. We may be sufficiently 
familiar with the sound of Chinese so that it stirs up in 
us at least the idea that it is a Chinese word. And in this 
way again it has gained a certain setting; it has lost its 
complete isolation. 

Yes, we may say that we cannot perceive anything 
which has not at least a slight apperceptive connection; 
there are always a few elements in our mind which are 
ready to welcome the newcomer. And this is true of the 
mind of the youngest child. We may always artificially 

131 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

separate the perceptive elements from those superadded 
subjective contributions, but we can never acknowledge an 
actual experience which is confined to naked perception. 
Indeed, we might say that if a perception does not 
grow into an apperception, it cannot come to its own rights 
at all. Endlessly many stimuli knock at the doors of our 
senses and are not absorbed at all. We cannot simply say 
that we do not perceive them. We might perhaps say we 
do not turn our attention toward them, but our attention 
would be drawn to them if they linked themselves with ap- 
perceiving clusters of ideas. 

To say that the teacher ought to take care that all new 
material is apperceived by the child is a commonplace which 
does not help toward an advance. Everything depends 
upon the ways of apperception. Things may be apper- 
ceived in a trivial way which does not educate at all and 
which does not enlarge the mind; and they may be apper- 
ceived in a way which really deepens the insight. The 
right guidance of apperception is the only important de- 
mand. And this right guidance will insist above all on 
such apperceptive processes as demand the pupil's own ef- 
fort and seeking. The more the child learns to discover 
the essential apperceptive relations, the more the new ma- 
terial will add to the mental equipment. No doubt the 
ability for apperception also passes through different 
stages. They may not always repeat themselves in the 
same order and still less in the same rhythm, inasmuch as 
they must be greatly influenced by individual differences. 
Experiment has unveiled here many fundamental char- 
acteristics. 

At present the favorite type of experiment is that of 
presenting a complex picture to a child for a few seconds 
and studying his replies to a series of questions which 

132 



APPERCEPTION 

refer to the details and the whole content of what he saw. 
It is a form of experiment which also very neatly allows 
the testing of the influence which suggestions or recent ex- 
perience or repetition or predilections may have on the 
shaping of the apperception. The stage of early childhood 
always seems to he one in which the chief clusters of the 
impressions still remain without connection. One thing 
and another are enumerated, often the most trivial before 
the most important. In the next stage, which is usually 
referred to the eighth year of life, the objects are apper- 
ceived with reference to their functions, especially the per- 
sons in the picture are apperceived in their activities. At 
about the tenth year the description gives account of the 
space and time relations and of the causal connections be- 
tween the things. The last stage is characterized by an 
effort to resolve the whole objects into their parts. 

The descriptions of the same picture shown to children 
of seven and of fourteen years for a quarter of a minute 
quickly yield these two extremes of the lowest and the 
highest stage of apperception. The experiment shows 
further that a careful preparation may apparently abbrevi- 
ate this natural development, but the success is not a lasting 
one. On the whole those various stages need their own 
time of development. The rhythm of this development is 
not the same for the two sexes. Moreover, the fundamental 
tendencies of the apperception also vary for the sexes; 
the girls seem to apperceive the personal activities, the boys 
the things. Yet the different ways of apperception are 
perhaps still more fundamentally varied by the personal 
types. Even the youngest pupils indicate the variations 
which foreshadow their whole life history. 

It has been proposed to classify those types of appercep- 
tion of which every school class contains specimens, as de- 
10 133 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

scriptive, connecting, scholarly, and emotional types. The 
first type repeats only what has been perceived ; the apper- 
ception thus refers to the objective analysis. The second 
type interprets the apperceived situation by uniting as well 
as possible the parts into a whole process. It is a synthetic 
understanding as against the analytic. The third t3rpe 
leaves what is perceived and turns to stored-up knowledge. 
Such pupils do not really observe; they see in the things 
that which they have learned and apperceive it by the 
means of their conceptions. Finally, the fourth type in- 
terprets the apperceived material by feelings and emotions. 
Such a child projects his own life into that outer experi- 
ence. The observation itself may even become falsified by 
fantastic additions, and the whole report thus gets a sub- 
jective character. 

It is not difficult to recognize in these various types the 
great groups of men which surround us everywhere and 
which give color and manifoldness to our public opinion. 
It is not surprising that experiment can discover these 
fundamental traits of apperception at the lowest stage of 
development, as just these tendencies are certainly given 
with the inborn disposition. Very little has been added 
by surroundings and education. To be sure, a conscientious 
teacher may try to overcome the one-sidedness of these 
types, may teach the boy of emotional type to become an 
effective observer of the objects of nature, and may teach 
the erudite type, who too easily relies upon words alone, to 
open wide the channels of the senses and to see and to 
hear. And yet fundamentally those tjrpes of apperception 
will remain, and while the school may work to overcome the 
narrowness of one or another type, the school will have 
still more interest in making the best of them. The teacher 
simply has no right to ignore this variety with which na- 

134 



APPERCEPTION 

ture has fitted the pupils, and least of all has the teacher 
the right to force his own chance type of apperception on 
the class with its various types. Is it necessary to point out 
that the whole manifoldness of apperception ultimately 
corresponds to ways of behavior, and that for this reason 
types of action are finally at the bottom of the apperceptive 
faculty? The child who is controlled in his behavior by 
the external impressions and the other child whose actions 
are unfoldings of his own ideas must come to very differ- 
ent ways of apperceiving the world; and their tendencies 
ought not to be neglected when the hour comes for choosing 
a calling for life. 

On the other hand, if we compare the general average 
of the youthful apperception with that of the adult, we 
might as well acknowledge a difference in the distribution 
of types. That which we call the emotional type after all 
characterizes the childish way of apperceiving the world in 
general. Compared with the adult the child is more in- 
clined to give a subjective interpretation of the apperceived 
surroundings, in such a way that his own life impulses and 
his own feelings are projected into the things. The ideas 
which the child's mind furnishes for the understanding of 
the world belong, therefore, more to the imagination than 
to the logical understanding or to the objective memory. 
Memory and imagination both work with the material 
which the earlier experience has supplied ; but the memory 
reproduces that material in the given order of the fore- 
going facts, the imagination combines the material in an 
order which is determined by the individual desires and 
feelings. The imaginative apperception accordingly in- 
terprets the given impressions by ideas which satisfy youth- 
ful longings. Here is the basis for the child's play. The 
boy apperceives the stick as a horse, the girl apperceives 

135 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

the stick as a doll. The change from this subjective to the 
objective apperception may be equally conditioned by the 
inner development and by the outer influences. The vivid- 
ness of the feelings and of the tendency to project the self 
into the world fades away and at the same time educa- 
tion supplies the richer and richer material for objective 
knowledge and memory. 

We have not yet taken account of that variety of indi- 
vidual apperception which has found the fullest treatment 
in the experimental study of personal differences in recent 
years. Even popular circles to-day usually know that 
which in an almost surprising way was ignored until a short 
time ago, the fact that human beings belong to a visual or 
an acoustical or a tactual-motor t3rpe of mind, or to types 
of characteristic mixtures of these fundamental forms. Yet 
this variety, which certainly no teacher should overlook, 
plays its most important role, not in the apperception of 
the world, but in the memory and imagination. We may, 
therefore, discuss it with this more natural background. 



CHAPTER XVI 



MEMORY 



The psychological problem of memory is ever present 
before the mind of the school-teacher. Toward all other 
domains of the pupil's mind such as attention, effort, in- 
terest, will, and judgment, the teacher may instinctively 
prefer the purposive attitude, may try to feel and to think 
with the child without psychologizing his inner experi- 
ence. But the hard facts of memory, or rather of the fail- 
ures of memory, almost force the psychological standpoint 
on the teacher. If it is demanded from the pupils to learn 
the multiplication table or historical dates, the stanzas of a 
poem or the French vocabulary, then it is necessary to 
know how the effect is best secured and what factors stand 
in the way. Yet teachers all over the world still show little 
familiarity with the real, underlying laws of this psycho- 
logical process and with the facts which the pedagogical ex- 
periment has secured. 

Memory is only a special case of the psychological re- 
production of earlier experiences. It comprises those re- 
productions of previous states which are accompanied 
by a conscious reference to the past. Our imagination, our 
voluntary thinking and reasoning may bring such repro- 
ductions of the same material of which our memories are 
formed, yet they are without conscious relation to our past. 
The explaining psychologist can easily find that they, too, 

137 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

have their real origin in our past experience, but the ex- 
periencing mind does not refer the imaginative idea to our 
earlier experience. The psychologist may show us that 
even the ideas of expectations are only new groupings of 
previous states which the subject projects into the, future. 
Every memory reminiscence depends upon the projection 
into the past. From an objective standpoint this reference 
may be erroneous, our certainty may be illusory, our imag- 
ination may have falsified the reproduced material, but we 
have a right to speak of memory as long as this subjec- 
tive reference is given. And even though, when we re- 
peat the multiplication table or historical dates, we cer- 
tainly no longer refer them to the definite date when 
we learned them for the first time, yet we are bound 
by the feeling that we reproduce what we have learned in 
the past. 

The general scheme of the reproduction process is al- 
ready familiar to us. We understood it as soon as we took 
the biological standpoint and analyzed the brain processes 
which lie at the bottom. Two nerve centers stimulated at 
the same time secure a connecting path of least resistance 
by which in future the stimulation of the one flows over to 
the other. Yet we saw from the start that this mechani- 
cal scheme of the sensorial processes can be only the be- 
ginning of the explanation. The real understanding of the 
associative process always demands the further reference to 
the motor setting, to the actions. Our motor setting, the 
readiness of our motor discharge, determines which of the 
many possible paths of small resistance will be used in the 
particular case. The openness of the motor path thus 
makes a selection among the possible associations. This 
motor readiness, on the other hand, is determined by the 
whole situation, which demands from us a particular way of 

138 



MEMOEY 

reacting. Only those associations which support the pre- 
pared action have a chance to develop. 

If I see a little, standing, black ellipse on a page, it 
might be the letter " o " as well as the digit zero. But if I 
see that little ellipse between other numbers, it does not as- 
sociate itself at all with the " o " idea, and if I see it be- 
tween other letters, the zero idea does not come to my mind 
at all. The motor attitude which I have taken has sifted 
all the possible associations before the excitement has be- 
come a real conscious, vivid experience. The psychologist 
then speaks of the constellation of ideas. Only those asso- 
ciations which harmonize with the whole constellation 
come to consciousness. In a way we never have associations 
belonging to one isolated idea only. The constellation 
which characterizes the memory process is, in the first 
place, that general setting in which we are ready to react 
as we did at a previous experience. We take the old atti- 
tude and expect that the fitting reproductions will set in. 
If our psycho-motor attitude were that of dreamy imagina- 
tion or of expectancy, the same word or the same impres- 
sions might awake entirely different associations. But 
since we create a psycho-motor situation in which we want 
to react as we reacted before, only those associations which 
really create the previous experience once more have a 
chance. 

Later we shall turn to association in general, but at 
first we may stick to this particular case, which is of such 
fundamental importance for the teacher. How does the 
mind, and in particular the child's mind, reproduce that 
which was taken in by the psychophysical system in the 
past. I may begin with a fact of which, on the whole, 
pedagogy seems still unaware and which contradicts the 
popular idea. I mean the fact that the mere seeing or hear- 

139 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHEE 

ing and attending of the material to be learned, even with 
the best will for learning, is not suflScient. When the per- 
ception is completed, the memory still demands a period 
for settling and organizing the content. We are always in- 
clined to think that if we have received the material, we 
have really taken it into our memory. We are not aware 
that a no less important period comes, in which our mem- 
ory begins to absorb it, and without which the material is 
lost. 

The physicians often tell us that if a man receives a 
blow on the head in an accident, he cannot remember what 
happened in the last half hour or last few hours before the 
accident. Why does he not lose what happened at an ear- 
lier time ? Evidently that which came to the mind last was 
not entirely absorbed, the brain cells had not done the com- 
plete work. Every classroom experiment easily demon- 
strates that. Eead to the children ten single substantives 
without connection, then give them a minute's rest and let 
them tell or write after that minute whatever they remem- 
ber. The larger boys and girls will easily remember six, 
eight, or ten words. Now repeat the experiment, but in- 
stead of a minute's rest, engage their minds at once during 
that minute by a little multiplication or division, thus giv- 
ing the mind no chance to absorb the memory material. 
When the minute has passed with their arithmetical work, 
let them give you the words which they have kept in mind. 
The result will be that two, three, or four words are re- 
membered and by not a few children, none at all. We 
learn when we do not think of it. We learn skating in 
summer and swimming in winter; we learn when asleep, 
we learn while we are idle. But we destroy our learning 
unless we give to our mind plenty of time for absorption 
instead of rushing from new to new material. Even the 

140 



MEMORY 

order of the lessons in school ought to be adjusted to this 
condition of the brain. 

Trustworthiness of memory and the power of accurate 
reproduction depends upon many factors. Every school 
child knows that repetition and freshness of impression is 
of the greatest helpfulness. Every teacher knows that the 
attention of the child is important. This stands in inti- 
mate relation to the impressiveness of the material, to 
the vividness with which it is presented, to the temporal 
rhythm in which it is offered, to its clearness and its feel- 
ing tone, and, above all, to the amount of material. There 
is practically no limit to the factors which may influence 
the successful reproduction of the memory material. Yet 
here again the physiological principles and especially the 
reference to activity and motor attitude most easily brings 
order into the chaos. 

Experimental pedagogy has succeeded in clearing up 
the facts of the case by going the way which experimental 
investigation always must go, namely, by substituting sche- 
matic material for the richer material of real life. The 
laboratory must always reduce the living facts with their 
abundance of relations to the simplest possible terms 
which seem to stand far behind the actual experience, but 
which allow the recognition of the real principles. We can- 
not study the laws of memory if we gather material only 
from learning poetry with its rich fringes of meaning. 
The turn to real pedagogy with scientific exactitude came 
when the memory studies were removed from the living 
school material and were performed with the dead stuff of 
nonsense syllables, all of comparable structure. 

With such nonsense material we can carefully measure 
the effect of various methods by a number of schemes. We 
may ask how many repetitions are necessary before the 

141 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

whole series of ten or fifteen or twenty syllables is re- 
peated correctly. Or we may ask how much of such a series 
is kept in mind, for instance, after one or after two or after 
three repetitions. Or we may inquire how often prompting 
is necessary for the correct reproduction of a given series. 
Each of these methods has its special advantages for par- 
ticular problems. In using all of them we can determine 
exactly the influence of every factor which influences mem- 
ory work and can study the changes which result from the 
natural growth of the pupil's mind and from training and 
education. A series of six syllables may need only one pres- 
entation to be repeated correctly, while for the same per- 
son twelve syllables may demand fifteen repetitions and six- 
teen syllables thirty repetitions. In a similar way we 
might study the infiuence of the time interval which lies 
between the learning and the reproduction. The experi- 
ment shows how exactitude falls off with increasing time 
at first rapidly, then slowly. Or we might study the in- 
fluence of the different sensations or the different technic 
of learning. The experiment can demonstrate, for instance, 
that a number of repetitions at one sitting is never as ef- 
fective as the same number divided into several groups of 
repetitions. Rhythmical learning becomes the greatest pos- 
sible help. Learning in large parts is much more economi- 
cal than learning in little bits, however much the instinctive 
feeling may object to such a statement. The experiment 
can also very neatly show how secondary connections 
are formed ; for instance, how far the first syllable connects 
itself not only with the second, but, to a certain degree, 
also, with the third and the fourth. There is very small 
tendency toward a backward connection. The first word 
awakes practically the whole line. 

Even such elementary facts which seem to go on en- 

14^ 



MEMORY 

tirely in the sensorial sphere find their natural explanation 
only by reference to that psycho-motor side which we em- 
phasized. If our memory associations were really nothing 
but connected ideas based on the nervous paths between 
sensory cells, we ought to be able to link B with A as well 
as A with B. Yet no one can repeat a poem backward, 
and any apparent reversion of the original order is pos- 
sible only where those things which come successively to 
our mind have become at once parts of one whole situation. 
If each part is felt as belonging to a simultaneous whole, 
any element may bring to our mind every other part. 
But all this only means that those ideas exist for us in 
their natural connection with our activities. We cannot 
reverse the order of the tones in the melody, because the 
hearing of it was at the same time a series of impulses to 
sing. We know the alphabet well only in one order be- 
cause we have learned to speak it so. This motor process 
also helps us to understand our need for certain rhythmical 
accentuations and the improvement of memory by a certain 
slowness of presentation. Indeed, the experiment shows 
that with words the number of errors of memory decreases 
to less than half when the intervals between the given 
words increase from half a second to two seconds. 
Of course here also belongs the very important help which 
results from the speaking or reading of the words to be 
remembered. 

The memory of the child is by far inferior to that of 
the adult. The pedagogical experiment has demonstrated 
that it does not grow in any steady progression, but in 
fluctuations. It seems that the improvement shows itself 
most strongly about the tenth or eleventh year and that the 
period of about the fourteenth year represents low tide. 
However, the memory does not grow equally for every ma- 

143 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

terial. On the whole, the memory for things develops more 
rapidly than that for words, while the memory for numbers 
develops least rapidly. The memory for visual material is 
earlier in evidence than that for movements and tactual 
impressions. It is claimed that this order is not exactly 
the same for boys and girls inasmuch as words which name 
visible things seem to be remembered better by girls than 
the things themselves, while with boys the opposite prevails. 
It seems that the reproduction of feelings comes especially 
late for both sexes. Between the eleventh and fourteenth 
year the memory of the girls seems to be decidedly superior 
to that of the boys, while later the average boy gets ahead. 

Only from recent investigations has much emphasis 
been put on the difference between the immediate repeti- 
tion and the real keeping in mind. It is well known that 
there are strong personal differences in this respect. Some 
people are able to repeat in a mechanical way that which 
they have just heard or seen while they forget it quickly; 
others are slow in their learning but retain it well. It is 
easy to demonstrate that the typical weakness of the child's 
memory lies in his inferior first learning, while he keeps 
relatively well what he has once learned. The older the 
child grows, the more does this faculty of the first cor- 
rect reproduction improve. From a certain age that second 
power directly decreases; the adult person more easily for- 
gets what he has once absorbed. The number of repeti- 
tions which are needed to give a correct rendering is much 
larger for the pupil than for the adult. The exactitude 
with which this reproduction is still possible after a longer 
period of time decreases with growing age. 

Both faculties, of learning and of retaining, without 
doubt, profit by training. The widespread belief that 
memory remains constant, that only external tricks of 

144 



MEMORY 

learning can be acquired, and that one is born with a good 
or a bad memory which cannot be changed must be eradi- 
cated. The mere formal training counts wonderfully, but 
it must be a real training in memorizing. The pedagogical 
experiments seem quite conclusive there. And the train- 
ing does not only secure the fuller development of the 
power to learn but counteracts effectively the natural loss 
of the retaining power in later years. It is an important 
question whether our present school tendencies are suffi- 
ciently adapted to this fundamental fact, the more as we 
must not forget that for the overwhelming majority of 
school children the whole training falls into a period in 
which the natural development of their memory has not 
reached its highest power. 

All these observations refer to the average. Perhaps no 
factor shades this average so much as the variety of idea- 
tional types to which we referred when we discussed apper- 
ception. The test of this variety is most easily made by 
studying the character of the memory images. To remem- 
ber last night^s party means to some persons to remember 
the visual scene, to others the hearing of words and music, 
and again to others the reviving of movements and motor 
perceptions. They represent three fundamental types. 
Each may show great differences. Even among those vis- 
ualizers some may see that party scene with all the colors 
of the ladies' gowns, while others see everything only white 
and gray; some see the whole scene and others only shift- 
ing parts. The motor type, too, may feel only the coarser 
movements or may once more pass through the whole con- 
versations with an internal speaking. Moreover, not a few 
combine various possibilities. The acoustical-motor imag- 
ination is so frequent that it has sometimes wrongly been 
called the typical, average way of thinking. 

145 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

This difference of types certainly also has its strong in- 
fluence on the power to absorb and to retain one or another 
kind of memory material. The visualizers cannot take 
hold of that which they hear, and the pupils of the acous- 
tical type are slow in learning what they only see. Those 
of the motor type are lost if no response is demanded by 
the situation. All inner speaking, all speaking aloud and, 
still better, all writing reinforces the impression for them 
as no other means can do. The individual differences go 
so far that, even in words which are seen or heard, one 
type will remember those which refer to visual things, an- 
other those words which contain a sounding process, and 
others those which refer to movements. To a certain de- 
gree the motor type makes use of words more easily than 
the visual or the acoustical type, and, as the development 
of the school child always goes from a thinking in things to 
a thinking in language, the motor type is predisposed to a 
quick development. But it would be entirely unjustified 
to identify the contrast between motor and visual type 
with the contrast between interest in words and interest in 
things. The visualizer deals with the words as written or 
printed impressions, and the motor type takes hold of the 
things in making them material of action or by interjecting 
activity into the things themselves. 

It is certainly in the power of every individual to de- 
velop just those tendencies of ideation which are feebly 
supplied to him by nature, and the fullest possible growth 
in all directions may be the ideal. It would, therefore, be 
hasty to confine instruction for each group of individuals 
to memory material in its particular preferred sense type. 
The idea of special classes for pupils of special memory 
type is, accordingly, unwise, but it would be still greater 
shortsightedness to ignore these fundamental differences 

146 



MEMORY 

in the technic of teaching. The teacher must never for- 
get that the words or figures which he writes on the black- 
board may be the intended help to the memory of merely 
one third of his class; there may be another third which 
would profit more if they heard the sounds from the human 
voice, and the remainder would retain them much better if 
they had a chance to speak or write them. The laboratory 
shows that these latter gain the advantage even if the writ- 
ing is not visible, but perhaps done with a piece of wood 
on the desk. The natural tendency of every teacher to put 
emphasis on the special scheme for which he is born must 
be a severe injustice to a large fraction. 



CHAPTER XVII 



ASSOCIATION" 



All remembering, we said, is a reproduction of earlier 
impressions, with the consciousness of the reference to the 
past. Most of our mental reproductions lack this temporal 
reference. If I see a French word and its translation 
comes to my mind, or if I see a flower and its name or its 
smell awakes in me, I do not refer it to the time when I 
experienced that connection before. Indeed, memory is 
only one special case of connecting the ideas which are re- 
productions of our earlier life experiences. Whatever we 
reason or fancy, whatever we expect or meditate about, 
whatever we hold before our minds as our knowledge or as 
our dream, is made up of the same material out of which 
our memories are shaped. In every case we have repro- 
ductions of earlier impressions controlled by a certain pur- 
pose. The most eccentric imagination cannot fancy a 
color which it has never seen, or a sound which it has never 
heard, or a taste which it has never tried. On the other 
hand, even the most faithful memory can never give 
us a complete reproduction of the past experience. Only 
that which serves the particular purpose enters into our 
remembrance. Not the character of the material, but the 
order which serves our end decides whether we speak of 
memory, or of knowledge, or of imagination. 

To see memory in its relation to all those other func- 

148 



ASSOCIATION 

tions, we ought indeed to be aware of these differences of 
mental aims and purposes. Memory belongs to that much 
larger group of mental processes which represent our prac- 
tical knowledge. The biological meaning of knowledge lies 
in its effectiveness for the guidance of our actions. We 
said before that Nevery judgment means a new setting of 
our whole inner apparatus for activity. To know some- 
thing about an animal means to set our inner world in 
such a way that we shall treat that animal in accordance 
with our knowledge. Memory represents that knowledge 
which renders the experienced order of things with a con- 
scious reference to the time of the experience. But as 
knowledge the value of such memory ideas then lies in the 
fact that those remembered connections of things are still 
in our present actions important and influential. We have 
to deal with a thing differently to-day because, as our ear- 
lier experience showed, it has a particular reference to 
other things. Yet, if that is so, then in most cases it must 
make no difference whether I am aware that I have experi- 
enced the connection before. If I read the French word 
now, all that is needed for my reaction is that it connect 
itself with the English translation, but it is entirely indif- 
ferent whether I become conscious that I learned this par- 
ticular connection between the French word and its trans- 
lation at a particular time from a teacher or book. The 
characteristic memory reference fades away and the French 
word now means the English word to me at once. I asso- 
ciate the one idea with the other without referring it to any 
past. It enters into the filling of my present perception. 

These after-images of the past may at the same time 

give content to our view of the future. Then we have 

ideas of expectation which we refer to the future event in 

the same way as we referred the memory ideas to the past. 

11 149 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

Those expectations are also made up of earlier experiences, 
but their combination is controlled by our future actions. 
The purpose is thus a different one. We expect that the 
blackboard will be on the wall of the schoolroom to-morrow 
with the same certainty with which we remember its being 
there yesterday. Yet it was our earlier impression which 
furnished the content for that expectation. We have only 
omitted every reference to the past in this reproduction 
and refer it to the future because we intend to write some- 
thing to-morrow with chalk upon that particular black- 
board. 

Of course, our education and instruction take care that 
the world of information is not confined to our own narrow 
sense experience, but is enlarged by the unlimited word 
experience. In reproducing the order of things, we can 
think of the Greeks and Eomans as well as of our own 
countrymen, and we can think of the Himalaya as well as 
of the hills around us. The material of our personal remem- 
brance includes in this way the experiences of mankind. 
We do not remember the Roman kings, but we remember 
the words which told us of them. Knowledge, therefore, 
represents the totality of our available mental material, 
combined in such a way that it is fit to guide our actions; 
and it is fit for that purpose when it represents the expe- 
rienced order of things. Only in those cases in which it is 
important for our social action to see the connected facts in 
the light of a special past situation do we call it memory. 

Still another group of combinations is given in our im- 
aginations. Here, too, the mental product may refer to 
past, or present, or future, but this time the purpose is the 
satisfaction of our personal longing. A feeling motive 
stands in the center. We add to our thought of the past or 
to our present impressions and, most of all, to our expecta- 

150 



ASSOCIATION 

tions of the future, all which makes them responsive to our 
desires and emotions. Our imagination gives color to dis- 
tant history and to our own life story. Our imagination 
plays on our present surroundings, our imagination makes 
us dream of castles in the air. But, again, it is our imag- 
ination which makes us inventive, which brings happy solu- 
tions of problems to our mind, not by the calculation of 
knowledge, but by the instinctive desires. It is a joyful 
play of ideas controlled by the demand for the satisfaction 
of an emotional desire. 

Hence, we have many large groups of combinations of 
ideas, and that which we call memory is only a particular 
part of one of those groups. It is common to all of them 
that their material is the reproduction of earlier experiences 
and that their order is controlled by a certain purpose. 
The purpose is determined by a given situation. Where 
we are to think, we cannot simply dream; where we want 
to play, there is no use in calculation ; where we try to re- 
member, we cannot speculate. But the carrjdng out of the 
particular purpose must be dependent upon the collected 
material of ideas which are at the disposal of the individual 
and of tlie connections which have been acquired through 
the individual life history. The ways in which this col- 
lected material is linked in the mind are called by the psy- 
chologist the association of ideas. 

To understand the interplay of ideas in all these activi- 
ties, such as memory and expectation, knowledge and rea- 
soning, imagining and creating, it becomes necessary to 
know something of the raw material in the pupil's mind. 
The association of ideas is in itself, accordingly, neither 
thinking, nor imagining, nor remembering, nor expecting. 
But the association of ideas furnishes the supply for all 
those purposive activities, and particular kinds of associa- 

151 



PSYCHOLOGY A¥D THE TEACHER 

tion must favor or oppose those various performances. The 
doctrine of the association of ideas is as old as the science 
of psychology. The greatest thinker of the classical Greeks 
laid the lasting foundations. But only in most recent 
years have the psychologists turned to the study of the in- 
dividual differences in association and of the characteristics 
of the young mind. Such individual differences show 
themselves most typically as soon as we apply the methods 
of the experiment. 

The association experiment demands that a word be 
called out, or a picture presented, or a word shown. Then 
the first word which enters the mind is to be uttered. I 
shout " Book '^ and the boy calls " Teacher " ; I say 
" Snake ^' and the boy answers " Frog " ; I may say 
" House " and he answers " Mouse." Such mere associa- 
tion in itself is no knowledge and no imaginative fancy, 
and not even memory. It may be on the way to either, but 
it has not reached there. Such an association experiment, 
therefore, allows the study of the mere material before it is 
shaped into our real, living, mental activities of thought 
and imagination. 

If now, for instance, we give a hundred words to a 
number of persons and each time have them write down 
the first word which comes to mind, we can easily com- 
pare the character of the associations which are prevalent 
in their mental mechanism. 

Of course, such a general statement does not indicate 
how difficult it often is to recognize the real character of 
such associations. The mere word frog does not indicate 
whether the image of a particular frog came to the mind 
or whether it was the general idea of frog, represented 
perhaps only by the sound of the word frog. A certain 
personal comment will usually be needed to interpret what 

152 



ASSOCIATION" 

was really going on in consciousness. On the other hand, 
we have many means in our modern experiments to study 
still further details in this process of association. For in- 
stance, we may measure the time and may find out what 
kind of associations form themselves rapidly in the mind. 
It is easy to show that all our training and our habits, our 
interests and our talents have a great influence on such 
time intervals. The association oak — tree may be formed 
by any one; and yet he who is interested in botany associ- 
ates it more quickly. And cow — milk, however familiar to 
every human being, will arise more rapidly in the mind of 
the child who has grown up in the country. A careful 
study of the association times often unveils the whole life 
history and the particular training. 

As to the general differences of individuals, we might 
at least point to one group of traits which probably refer 
to real, inborn tendencies. A person who hears the word 
oak and thinks of a particular oak, might associate with it 
the idea of some other tree — for instance, elm. Perhaps 
his neighbor may associate a part of the tree and think of 
branches. And, again, another may think from the oak 
tree to the whole forest or the whole landscape of which it is 
a part. In short, the idea of the thing awakes in some per- 
sons the thought of another coordinated thing, in some 
persons the idea of a part, and again in some the idea of 
a larger whole. This same threefold tendency may recur, if 
we think of general ideas. The general conception of oak 
may awake in some the coordinated idea of elm, in others 
a particular kind of that general conception — for instance, 
gold oak, while others will go to the still wider conception 
of tree. 

There we have variations which are characteristic for 
life. Children, as well as adults, have this tendency to 

153 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

move in their ideas either to coordinated, or to superordi- 
nated, or to subordinated, ideas. But this general tendency 
must prepare the children in very different ways for par- 
ticular studies, and, as we may add at once, for particular 
callings in life. The one type of association will lead the 
mind from the special case to the general ideas, the other 
type will rather lead from the general to the special. Even 
among the great thinkers we find such fundamental differ- 
ences. There are inductive and deductive minds, there are 
born observers, and born speculators, and born inventory, 
and born experimenters, and born philosophers; and all 
these great differences show themselves in miniature copies 
in every classroom. No teacher who wants to stimulate 
the children to their utmost efficiency can ignore these dif- 
ferent tendencies of association. Yet, again, it must be 
added that it would be shortsighted to draw the conclusion 
that the children ought to be separated according to these 
mental traits. On the contrary, the instruction ought to 
supplement the inborn tendency by training in that which 
nature neglected. But the teacher must know which 13 
which. 

Still more important may it be for the teacher to be 
aware of those characteristics of association which belonor 
to the child as such as against the associative traits of the 
adult. The chief emphasis should be laid on the fact that 
with the intelligent children the association in the form of 
individual ideas decidedly prevails. The word awakes the 
idea of a concrete instance, and this particular idea awakes 
another of the same concreteness. The child hearing the 
word cat thinks of a special cat, and if he associates with 
it the word dog, again the particular dog of his neighbor 
is in question. That is in striking contrast to the habits 
of intelligent adult persons. Their training and develop- 

154 



ASSOCIATION 

ment has brought it about that the association cat — dog 
would go on essentially in mere general conceptions. The 
experiments have demonstrated that this form of mere 
conceptional word-association in a child is, on the whole., a 
sign of weak intelligence. 

An especially great role belongs to the feelings as links 
between associated ideas. Anything which awakes a special 
kind of feeling suggests to the child ideas which have a 
similar feeling tone. The average time of associations is 
always slower for children than the average of associations 
with adult persons. The best studies that have been made 
in the field showed that, for instance, the word fish gave 
for boys an average association time of two hundred and 
twenty-three thousandth part of a second, for the average 
of adult persons one hundred and fifty-two ; the word table, 
for boys one hundred and fifty-seven, for adult persons one 
hundred and twenty-three; the word white, for boys one 
hundred and ninety-six, for adults one hundred and thirty- 
five; the word blue, for boys one hundred and seventy-five, 
for adults one hundred and eighteen. The tendency of the 
child's ideas to remain in the same sphere is no less charac- 
teristic. The adult person moves from optical to acoustical, 
from acoustical to tactual experiences; the child remains 
always in the sphere of the same sense. Correspondingly, 
the same group of ideas has a tendency to persevere 
in the child. Images which have arisen remain effective 
for a longer time than in the adult. And if a certain type 
of association has come into the foreground, it easily perse- 
veres through a whole series of association experiments. 

Careful experimental studies with school children 
through a period of several years have demonstrated that 
the ability to associate fit ideas steadily develops. On the 
one side the time becomes shorter from year to year, on 

155 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER , 

the other the fields from which the associations are drawn 
become larger, and this is in a high degree independent of 
the supply of new ideas. Even the youngest school child 
has experienced enough in life to be able to associate many 
more ideas than he really brings forward. That which he 
acquires and must acquire through his period of education 
is not only new material, but the ability to reach out for 
his material, to have it easily at his command, and not to 
be confined to the most superficial and most usual connec- 
tions. To have a rich ideational life, it is by far more im- 
portant to connect easily than to have an abundance of 
ideational material. The twenty-six letters of the alpha- 
bet are suflScient to form all the dramas of Shakespeare. 



CHAPTER XVIII 



ATTENTION 



The transition from the mere interplay of ideas to the 
activity of our attention means no real turn in the road 
for us. We have seen that it is arbitrary ever to separate 
the impressions and images and ideas from the activities 
and expressions and deeds. To us the whole organism was 
a reaction apparatus in which impressions and expressions 
belong together. Surely, the mere association is a passive, 
mechanical process. But we have seen that our real life 
experience does not bring to us mere association of ideas. 
\^Their interplay is constantly controlled by purposes which 
we select and by ends for which we are active. / Our judg- 
ing, and remembering, and imagining, and even our dream- 
ing, are related to our doing. Hence, we face no new 
situation if we turn to that pedagogically most important 
activity which we call attention. Here, too, everything is 
determined by the impressions and ideas on the one side 
and by the reactions on the other side. 

The aim of the attention is always the same. The pur- 
pose is to obtain a fuller and richer insight into the mate- 
rial which we attend. The reactions which we perform are 
subordinated to this end. As far as outer movements of 
the body are concerned, we are turning toward the impres- 
sions, we are adjusting our sense organs, we are fixating 
and listening, we follow with our movements every change 

157 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

of the attended object, we are holding our breath, we are 
suppressing every activity which might interfere with the 
sharpest possible impression; in short, we secure for our- 
selves the best chance to get the maximum of the attended 
thing. Nothing is changed if, instead of an external thing, 
a thought, a suspicion, a problem, an idea, a plan is in 
question. We try to secure everything which is involved 
in it. Our attention as such does not approve or reject, 
does not alter or destroy the things, but it simply aims to 
hold them before the mind in order to get the greatest 
possible insight and effect. It is clear that it must be the 
vital process for education. The ideas and impressions of 
life rush on, and each stirs up the reacting mechanism, but 
they are of unequal importance for the practical purposes 
of man. Everything depends upon the power to give the 
mind over to a few things and at any time to ignore the 
remainder. But we must not give over our mind only to 
the chance appearance, but to all which is contained in the 
important offering of life — that is, we must learn to at- 
tend. 

Whenever we are attentive, the reaction must have two 
sides. We do our best to get whatever we can out of the 
attended material. We focus our senses and our whole 
activity on the important spot. But that demands at the 
same time the negative function. We suppress all those 
actions which the not-attended impressions would demand. 
We write our letter, and therefore suppress the impulse to 
rush to the window when there is a noise on the street. 
If our psycho-motor apparatus is still in such a state that 
the voices on the street make us rush to look out, our letter 
is lost, our attention is gone. 

Now we saw before that, as far as the external actions 
are concerned, these positive and negative activities belong 

158 



ATTENTION" 

intimately together. Our nervous system is organized in 
such a way that if we do a certain thing all the opposite 
actions are inhibited. The channels of motor discharge 
are somehow, blocked for them. If it were not so, atten- 
tion would not be possible. Now we only have to come 
back to our previous claim, that those ideas become vivid 
which find the ways for action open and those ideas are 
suppressed which find the channels of activity closed. The 
whole process of attention is then explained. If now we 
look on it not from the motor side, but from the standpoint 
of inner experience, we find a fivefold happening. First, 
that which we attend becomes vivid in our minds. Sec- 
ondly, it also becomes more clear. Thirdly, it develops 
itself; fourthly, everj^thing which leads away is suppressed 
and inhibited, and, fifthly, we feel ourselves in adjusted 
activity. We must study all this in detail. 

We said that the idea becomes more vivid. We must 
sharply separate that from the greater intensity. We may 
listen to the faintest tone of the violinist, a tone which is 
hardly audible, and yet which fascinates us and takes hold 
of our mind most vividly, without its becoming in the 
least more intense. A whispered word may stand out most 
vividly in all its weakness of intensity, while the loud noises 
around us may remain without any vividness and almost 
unnoticed. From the vividness we distinguish the clear- 
ness. The clearness of the object is secured when the va- 
rious parts of it are spearated from one another; in the 
not attended content of the mind the elements are fusing 
and blending together. Everything which is in the back- 
ground of our mind is melting into a unity without sharp 
demarcation lines. If we stroll through the streets, the 
people who pass by form unities in which the details are 
not separated from one another. As soon as a face or a 

159 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

gown attracts our attention the features are separated and 
discriminated and each is fixated in our mind in its own 
characteristics. The vividness refers to every element; a 
single element can become more vivid. But the clearness 
belongs to the manifold; a single element can become 
clearer only in so far as it becomes more strongly distin- 
guished from the others. 

We claimed, further, that the object of attention devel- 
ops itself in our mind. It becomes the center of associa- 
tions. For instance, what we discriminate awakes in us 
words and names, and gains connections with what we 
know. New and ever new fringes become attached. The 
thought connects itself with its consequences, the object 
with the idea of the appropriate volitions. And just in this 
way the purpose of our attention becomes fulfilled. But 
we saw that everything fades away in the mind which 
would lead to opposite actions. In the overexcitement of 
the battle the soldier does not even feel the pain of his 
wound; in our absorption in our work we may not only 
forget our engagements, but may inhibit the hunger for 
the meal. Finally, we feel in our mind the sensations of 
those bodily adjustments, those motor impulses, which 
secure the adjusted attitude, and this sensation of our own 
activity gives us most strongly the feeling that our atten- 
tion is our own work. 

It is evident that these five factors stand in closest cor- 
relation. That adjusting activity which we feel is not only 
accompanied by greater vividness, but leads backward to a 
sharper and clearer view of the object. This clearer view 
again reenforces the impulse to the adjusted activity. 
Moreover, it is the clearness and vividness which secures 
those associations in which the idea develops itself. And 
the richer this development the more all the opposite ideas 

160 



ATTENTION" 

must be inhibited and crowded out of the mind. But the 
more the opposite ideas are suppressed the greater the 
opportunity for the attended idea to control our reactions. 
And in this way we have a circular movement by which our 
attention grows from its own resources. 

To be sure, this growth has its narrow limits. The 
stronger and the longer the effort, the more fatigue must 
set in, and the wonderful mechanism of our mind secures 
an automatic correction there. Any fatigue sensation 
works as a stimulus for the opposite reaction. The fatigue 
finally breaks open the channels of activity for the opposite 
deed, and as soon as that opposite pathway is open the 
ideas which lead to that new action must become vivid. 
Then our attention is wandering and fluctuating. What 
was at first inhibited gains in power, and, supported by 
the feeling of fatigue, it destroys the first setting of the 
attention. The new idea becomes vivid, but as soon as 
in this way the fatigue is removed the chances for the 
first stimulus are improving. A rivalry sets in; the 
first impression gets control again, and thus the at- 
tention may alternate or may become distracted by any 
disturbance. 

We speak of passive, or involuntary, attention when the 
impression or the arising idea opens the channels for the 
attending activity by its own power. Everything which is 
loud, or sudden, or shining, or impressive has its natural 
chance. In the same way everything which is surprising, 
everything which has a strong emotional value, everything 
which connects itself with our hopes and fears forces itself 
on our attention. There is no effort needed to attend our 
toothache, or to look at an accident which happens on the 
street, or to follow an absorbing novel. But there is much 
active attention necessary if, instead of the toothache, we 

161 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

are to observe our tactual sensations for half an hour ; or, 
instead of the accident, a chemical substance on the labo- 
ratory table ; or, instead of the novel, the irregular verbs of 
a foreign language. In all these latter cases we have to 
open the channels of reaction ourselves — that is, we must 
associate ideas which secure the reaction where the reaction 
would not follow from the given material. We speak, 
therefore, of an active, or voluntary, or mediate attention. 
Anything in the world can be object of such indirect, active 
attention, and thus become interesting in consequence of 
the ideas which we furnish as supplement. The most triv- 
ial spot in a landscape may hold our attention if we know 
that it was the place at which an important historical event 
happened. 

If in this way we understand the mechanism of atten- 
tion, we can easily see where the interest of the teacher 
must center. He must ask what factors can help toward 
the vividness and clearness and self-development of the 
impressions, what factors help toward the suppression and 
inhibition of the not attended, what factors lead toward the 
voluntary, active attention; he must further inquire what 
secures a lasting attention, what the natural limitations of 
attention are, how far we find individual differences, how 
far these differences are influential on the whole work, 
how far characteristic differences between the attention of 
the child and of the adult exist, how far attention can be 
trained, how far it develops itself, and how far it changes 
without any systematic training. Such questions, within 
the last few years, stand in the center of experimental ped- 
agogy, and the psychological laboratories have at last begun 
to shape their investigations with direct reference to the 
needs of the teacher. To go into the rich details of those 
most interesting studies is, of course, out of the question 

162 



ATTENTION 

here, but at least in a few directions some characteristic 
points may be mentioned. 

A sudden stirring up of attention is easily produced. 
Wherever a sharp contrast with the foregoing material is 
introduced — something surprising, something unusually 
intense and loud, something amusing, something impor- 
tant, something threatening — the child's mind will adjust 
itself involuntarily and everything else may be for one 
pulse beat of attention inhibited and suppressed. But such 
attention can be only of slight importance for the life in 
school. The teacher would degrade himself if he were to 
secure attention by his jokes or by unexpected gestures; 
and even that would share with all other pedagogically im- 
proper means the fate of being rather ineffective after a 
short time. Every contrast of feeling must quickly fade 
away, and even that which forces attention by its bright- 
ness and clearness or loudness can hold the mind of the 
child only if it steadily progresses in its intensity. \An 
attention which is entirely secured by means from without 
can never have that permanent character which alone 
secures the unfolding and deeper development of the at- 
tended material. Above all, such passive attention does 
not contribute anything to the training of the mental 
activity. The mind is carried hither and thither, but does 
not learn to move by its own efforts. 

This does not involve the desirability of the opposite 
extreme. It does not mean that the greatest gain is 
reached when the attention is constantly forced on material 
which is uninteresting and which has no power in itself to 
attract attention. Moreover, such an effort would be frus- 
trated by the inability of any mind to overcome the fatigue 
of attention. After all, inattention is not always a vice of 
the mind, but is a desirable safety valve. The experiment 

163 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

demonstrates the limits of our powers. Any one of us 
may look steadily for five minutes at a written or printed 
word, such as " table " or " space." In the first minute we 
see the word and understand its meaning, but soon our at- 
tention cannot persist; the meaning fades away; our eyes 
still see those dead letters, but there is no longer a word. 
Teachers ought to remind themselves of this very simple 
experiment, and ought to carry it out for themselves be- 
fore they force the child's attention through mere dreary 
repetition on the same uninteresting content for a long 
while. Even the simplest sense impression may teach us 
the necessary fluctuation of our attention. We may draw a 
square and the two diagonals ; it looks to us like a standing 
pyramid. Now we try to hold that before our mind, but, 
in spite of our best efforts, it suddenly transforms itself 
and becomes a hollow pyramid, and after a little while it 
slips back and becomes solid. In short, the apex turns 
toward us and away from us alternately while our atten- 
tion is helpless. 

Thus, we are unable to rely simply upon the effort for 
attention. We must give to the attention the chance to act 
in accordance with its own laws. We must offer to the at- 
tention material which allows a shifting and a change. 
But all that points to the necessary middle path between the 
two unreasonable extremes. A mere attraction from the 
outside without inner effort or cooperation is wrong; a 
mere inner effort without interesting material and without 
chance for change of attention is no less wrong. Both are 
contrary to the fundamental life conditions of the mind. 
That which is needed is an engagement of the attention 
by material which becomes attractive through that which 
the pupil's own mind furnishes, and it must allow a shift- 
ing, but a shifting in the midst of the attended material 

164 



ATTEN^TION" 

itself. To begin with the latter, attention can indeed find 
all its needed changes without fatigue, if the attended ma- 
terial offers sufficient inner variety. We cannot attend a 
straight line for half an hour, but we can easily attend for 
half an hour Eaphael's " Madonna." There is no need for 
the attention to move away from the painting, because in 
the object itself it can shift from line to line, from color to 
color; and every new movement from one focus point of 
attention to another reenforces our interest in the whole. 
The greater the manifoldness of connections in the at- 
tended material, the richer the relations, the fuller the 
meaning, the more significant the parts, the more impor- 
tant the ideas involved, the more responsive the pupil's at- 
tention will be. It can shift and change and remain al- 
ways fresh without leaving the work and without the mind 
wandering outside the classroom. 

Yet the other factor is no less important. This mani- 
foldness and richness must not come from without. It 
must be supplied by the experiences and knowledge of the 
pupil himself, and must be found, must be discovered, 
must be elaborated by his own efforts. This alone is the 
truly productive attention. Only that which finds associ- 
ative connection counts for real growth. Whatever re- 
mains isolated may attract attention, but is ineffective. 
And yet even this demand is only half the story. To 
secure the ideal effect, those associative links must be 
sought by the effort of the pupil himself. Under this con- 
dition only does every act of attention become a training 
of the personality which works toward true intellectual 
culture. The old pedagogical prescription, that the teacher 
ought never to introduce new material which could not be 
welcomed by the accumulated ideas and experiences of the 
child, must therefore be applied with discrimination. It 
13 165 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

is surely true that the teacher must prepare any material 
so that it may be apperceived by the child and be welcomed 
by his attention. But this preparation is very unpedagog- 
ical if it has simply furnished beforehand everything which 
makes any coming idea interesting and attractive. 

The pupil should have to do his own work in securing 
those significant relations. The teacher must prepare the 
interest only in so far as he must make the child able to 
find connecting links; but the pupil himself must really 
find them. The pupil must learn how to secure- his own 
true attention to that which would be monotonous and tire- 
some without his self-activity. He is to be prepared 
for a life which shares with every human life the fate that 
most of it is tiresome unless the interest is supplied from 
within. Instruction which makes everything attractive in 
itself may yield an acquaintance with many things, and yet 
may be much less valuable than instruction which focuses 
on fewer things, if this concentrated work trains the power 
to develop interest in that which finds no natural welcome 
in the mind. To find the right middle way is the true test 
of the teacher, and the use of this middle way by no means 
excludes wisely chosen occasional excursions to either side. 
The teacher may sometimes rely on an entirely external 
forcing of passive attention, perhaps by brightening the 
instruction with humor, or by mechanical means of loud 
shouting, or by attractive pictures, or by mere repetition; 
or, on the other hand, he may, and must sometimes, appeal 
to the voluntary effort of the pupils to focus their atten- 
tion on something which has not become at all interesting. 
He may do so by admonition, or even by threatening with 
punishment, or by training with written and oral work 
which forces the voluntary attention. No sharp demarca- 
tion line can exist there. The tact of the teacher and his 

166 



ATTENTION 

instinct must decide what mixture is appropriate, but the 
conscientious teacher must know that the appeal to the 
involuntary attention is least helpful for the true develop- 
ment of the child. And that means that the teacher must 
learn resignation: his easiest triumph is his smallest suc- 
cess. 

Inasmuch as we emphasized the motor aspect of the at- 
tention, it is natural to consider how far the training and 
development of attention can be secured by motor proc- 
esses. This is indeed a factor to which highest importance 
belongs. We distinguish the positive and the negative side 
of the motor adjustment — that is, the performing of those 
actions which are adapted to the attended thing and the 
suppression of those actions which would lead away from 
it. Both can be secured by systematic training; and such 
a training really means a strengthening of the power of at- 
tention. It seems that the negative factor is even the more 
important. The child must learn to suppress the unneces- 
sary movements, the superfluous impulses which distract. 
The pupil cannot learn to be really attentive if he is al- 
lowed every haphazard movement and every play of his 
muscles when he is to attend to his lesson. Even the de- 
mand for a straight position, not fatiguing, but indicating 
control of the body, will be helpful. The careful adjustment 
of the motor impulses in fixating and listening, in writing 
and reading and drawing, is a constant schooling of the at- 
tention. Yes, it is evident that in this sense even system- 
atic gymnastic training will do some service. The motor 
processes then w^ork backward on the mental states. The 
careful adjustment of the motor organs reenforces the viv- 
idness and clearness of the ideas, and the suppression of 
the opposite actions secures the inhibition of the interfering 
thoughts. The shiftless mind can be most directly forced 

167 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

into service by a systematic control of the motor response. 
The misapplication begins only if the motor activities are 
reenforced in such a way that they themselves enter into 
the center of attention. The mental balance then becomes 
disturbed, and that which was to secure attention becomes 
an element of distraction. 

But the importance of motor training for the develop- 
ment of attention leads to the question of individual ditfer- 
ences, as there cannot exist a general prescription which 
fits those children who are naturally indolent and inex- 
pressive and those others who are naturally inclined to vivid 
movements and to strong expression. The individual dif- 
ferences in the character of the attention are indeed mani- 
fold. They are the most fundamental differences of men, 
perhaps more responsible than anything else in our mental 
make-up for the difference between success and failure in 
the various callings, in a certain way even between genius 
and the average ability. All such differences show them- 
selves from early youth. The experiment can point to 
them rapidly. The carefully observing teacher can find 
them by watching the behavior, the work, and the progress 
of the child. 

If we arrange the simple scheme of showing for a few 
seconds to the children of the class a card on which ten 
colored squares are pasted in irregular order and ten 
pictures of well-known objects are attached and ten letters 
or ten short words are printed, we quickly discover fun- 
damental differences in their tendency to attend. If we 
ask them beforehand to give their attention only to the 
colors, there will be some wlio do not see anything but the 
colors and who cannot report afterwards about any picture 
on the card, while others have seen the pictures almost as 
well as the colors. Beginning with such an ordinary form 

168 



ATTENTIOIN" 

of attention experiment we pass to more and more com- 
plex formulations. If while the child is looking at those 
colors or those pictures, a noise is made in the room or 
a sentence spoken, there will be some whose attention is 
decreased by the disturbance to such a point that almost 
all of the pictures are lost, and there will be others upon 
whom the disturbance is without influence. 

If we show single pictures in various rhythms, we shall 
find some pupils who can attend only the slow impressions, 
others who can adjust the attention to a rapid succession. 
Yes, we shall find for almost everyone a particular rhythm 
which is best for his adaptation of attention, and the indi- 
vidual differences may be great. In a similar way we 
might measure the length of the time during which the 
children can maintain their attention. There will be some 
whose attention is rather intense but quickly becomes fa- 
tigued, others whose attention is more superficial but can 
be maintained at a fair height for a long while. In short, 
the whole type of adjustment and fixation, of expansion 
and distribution of attention, or intensity and responsive- 
ness of attention, of voluntary and involuntary response 
shows the greatest possible variations in the classroom, and 
the teacher would move in a fictitious world if he were to 
presuppose that all the children before him were able to 
offer to the world the same type of average attention. 

The logical consequence of this situation is not easily 
drawn. Some might question whether the children with 
different kinds of attention ought not to be trained in a 
different way from the beginning. There are types of at- 
tention which are evidently unfit for careful observation 
of natural objects or for mathematics or for foreign lan- 
guages. Just as later when a man may be a good lawyer 
but would be a poor physician, or may be a good engineer 

169 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

but would be a poor teacher, we certainly advise him to 
progress in that line in which he can do his best; so, too, 
we might confine the lessons of the child to those studies 
for which his attention is predisposed. The other extreme 
would be to emphasize the community of our life duties and 
therefore to demand that these natural differences be ex- 
tinguished by the systematic training of the school. Again, 
the wise way will be the middle path. A real disappear- 
ance of those differences cannot be effected anyhow. The 
fundamental attention type seems to outlast all artificial 
training. Yes, it is doubtful whether an attention can be 
strongly developed in all directions, whether a concentrated 
attention and an expansive attention would keep house to- 
gether; and the teacher will make his instruction by far 
more productive if he adapts the work to those varieties of 
powers. On the other hand, there seems to be no doubt 
that the one-sidedness of the individual tendencies must 
not be reenforced, but overcome. And the experiment 
demonstrates that to a certain degree such changes of at- 
tention type can be secured. The tasks of life are indeed 
too complex to be fulfilled in the best way by a one-sided 
type of attention. Even the tendency to concentrate one- 
self becomes dangerous if it too strongly inhibits all the 
rival ideas. Our attention must be flexible and while the 
child must learn to fixate his attention on one point and to 
maintain it, it is not less necessary for him to learn to 
pass easily from one thing to another, and perhaps to do 
several things at once. 

In many American schools the children are obliged to 
do their studying and written work in rooms in which 
other children are reciting. It is a miserable situation 
which undermines the concentrated attention of the chil- 
dren, but it certainly has had the effect of training whole 

170 



attentio:n" 

generations in the power of distributing attention. The 
loss is greater than the gain, as it is more important to 
learn to do one thing with a fully absorbed mind than to 
be able to do many things together in a superficial way. 

Whatever the individual types may be, the need of a 
training of voluntary attention is the one demand which 
must be common to all. Still another aspect must always 
be before the teacher's mind. Whatever the type of atten- 
tion may be, the child's power of attention is undeveloped 
as compared with that of the average adult. ■ The attention 
of the child is always more liable to being distracted. It 
offers less resistance to any incoming disturbance. More- 
over, the child's attention shifts more easily and fluctuates. 
As a matter of course, the child's attention is also by 
far more predisposed for sense impressions than for 
thoughts and ideas. The adaptation of his attention is 
slow and its fatigue sets in quickly. Every one of these 
factors makes it necessary to adjust the instruction to 
each stage of the development of the child, as far as a de- 
mand on his attention is concerned. He cannot observe 
like an adult, he cannot follow like an adult, he cannot 
persist like an adult, he cannot be interested like an adult. 
And yet the instruction would sin unpardonably if it were 
not steadily making serious demands upon the child's at- 
tention. Other functions of the child grow with the mere 
passing of years ; the child's attention grows only through 
systematic and careful training. 



CHAPTER XIX 

IMITATION AND SUGGESTION 

We want to speak of imitation, suggestion, and effort; 
and yet after all that only means that we want to go on 
speaking of attention. Did we not recognize that the chief 
significance of attention lies in its power to give us more 
and more of the attended- to material? Every single trait 
of the process served this end. The mind seeks to get a 
deeper insight and firmer hold on the object of attention, 
aims toward the unfolding and fuller effectiveness of its 
object. The actions and the suppressing of the opposite 
actions, the vividness of the impressions and the inhibition 
of the opposite impressions all cooperate to make the con- 
tents attended to clearer and stronger and more lasting in 
consciousness. How will it be, then, in case the attended- 
to material is the idea of a bodily movement? 

If we give our attention to the idea of a movement, 
there is only one way to fulfill the purpose of attention: 
the organism itself must produce the movement. The per- 
formance of the movement then furnishes a new vivid per- 
ception of it and the mere idea of the action thus becomes 
reenforced by the fresh perception. We must not forget 
that the association between the movement impulse and 
the image of the movement is naturally most intimate. 
Through our whole life history we have experienced 
the movement and the corresponding sensation together. 

112 



IMITATION" AND SUGGESTION 

Whenever we think of the movement, a certain im- 
pulse toward its realization arises in our nervous mech- 
anism. Usually it is checked by more important ideas. 
The impulse arises in the brain but is not carried 
out into real action because we are engaged in other activi- 
ties, and it is therefore inhibited by them in lower brain 
centers. But if we give attention to the idea of the move- 
ment we mean thereby that this idea becomes the control- 
ling one, that no opposite ideas check it and therefore the 
natural result must occur. The idea becomes vivid by 
realization through actual movement. The idea of a move- 
ment attracts our attention most easily when we perceive 
the movement performed by some one else. Seeing our 
fellow beings in the act of performance, our attention is 
centered on the idea of that movement and the necessary 
consequence is our own performance of the same act. That 
alone is imitation. 

There is no mystical will influence involved. By small- 
est steps the imitation of fellow beings goes over into the 
imitation of movements in unfeeling nature. If we fixate 
the movements of a pendulum, our whole body responds 
to the swinging movement by faint impulses with which 
we repeat the motion which we perceive. And again this 
is by principle no different from the effect of thinking of a 
particular point in space. If we hold between our thumb 
and forefinger a thread to which a metal ball is attached 
and with closed eyes think attentively of a special direc- 
tion, very soon the ball will swing in exactly the fancied 
direction. This is the secret of the so-called muscle read- 
ing. A person attentively thinks of the place where per- 
haps a pin is hidden and the muscle reader grasps his 
wrist. The thought of the place discharges itself in motor 
impulses which indicate sufficiently to the sensitive fingers 

173 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

where to seek the hidden object. The idea leads to the 
movement without any conscious effort. The imitative 
movement represents only the extreme case. 

It is worth considering that this involuntary discharge 
is in many respects superior to the strongest intention. 
Let a boy press down the so-called dynamometer, a ma- 
chine which registers exactly the amount of pressure which 
the hand exerts. Let him try to use his greatest possible 
strength. We can still heighten it if we encourage him, if 
we promise him something, if we appeal to his good will. 
And yet the experiment shows that he can go beyond the 
highest point which he reaches through mere effort, as 
soon as we ask him to look at how we do it ourselves. See- 
ing another press down the button gives an additional 
strength to his brain centers which mere good will was 
unable to secure. No teacher can afford to neglect this 
reservoir of energy which becomes available as soon as imi- 
tation is at work. But here again we must not draw an 
artificial line of separation between the external and the 
internal activities. To imitate spoken words is no differ- 
ent from imitating the pressure of a button, and to imitate 
the speaking of a word is by principle no different from the 
imitation of thoughts and preferences in the inner mind. 
We must always keep before us the general point of view 
that words which we hear and see are substituted for the 
things, and that the words which we speak are substituted 
for actions in the social world. We imitate the ways of 
thought just as we imitate the ways of movement, and psy- 
chophysically the mechanism is the same. 

The imitative tendency of the average child is much 
stronger than that of the adult. In the last third of the 
first year of life imitation sets in and soon takes hold of 
the most important factors of the child's development. By 

174 



IMITATION AND SUGGESTION 

imitation the child learns speaking and later writing and 
reading; by imitation he learns the social behavior and the 
decent forms of practical life; by imitation he submits to 
the standards of truth and beauty and morality in his sur- 
roundings. Of course the mechanism of imitation does not 
work to perfection. But just the imperfection of the suc- 
cess becomes the vehicle for the inner development. If 
only movements which have no concrete effect were in 
question, the incompleteness of the imitation would not be 
noticeable to the child. In most cases, however, every- 
thing centers on the final effect. The imitated word is in- 
effective if the hearers cannot understand the sound pro- 
duced, the imitated drawing does not satisfy unless others 
can recognize the thing which is sketched, the imitation of 
throwing a ball cannot give rest if the ball does not hit. 
The anticipated idea of the purpose and the resulting ef- 
fect thus disturb each other in the mind and this conflict 
demands new and ever new effort, until the tension is re- 
lieved by a complete harmony between purpose and result. 
The child tries again and again and in this way perfects 
the nervous paths of transmission until the successful imi- 
tation becomes habitual. 

Yet it would be one-sided to consider every difference 
between the model and the imitation as due to lack of skill 
and success. The imitative tendency of the child has its 
natural limitation in the opposite desire to assert his own 
tendencies and his individual traits. The two factors to- 
gether build up the consciousness of a true personality. 
The child develops the personality by doing as others do, 
by thus becoming an equal of the others, by asserting him- 
self with the same powers and same abilities and same suc- 
cessful performances which mark the personalities of his 
fellows. But he develops within himself in another way 

175 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

the consciousness of his own personality by being different 
from the others, by not entirely submitting to their ways 
and by feeling the originality of the variations from the 
pattern. Here again the action is involuntary; the child 
does not aim toward an emphasis of his originality, but 
the particular ways in which he differs from the given ex- 
amples in his reactions are slowly felt as features which 
contrast with the other children. 

Both factors are equally indispensable. There is no 
originality which is not essentially imitative. Even the 
most important thinker thinks in the ideas of his age and 
of his social surroundings. What is added is always small 
compared with what is accepted. On the other hand, no 
life lacks originality. The inherited disposition and the 
particular fate from the cradle to adolescence secure an 
abundance of mental and bodily connections which can- 
not be duplicated by any other being. But while both 
factors, the inventive and the anti-inventive, are present in 
every child, their relative importance is extremely varied. 
And again the important question may arise how far we 
should yield to the preponderance of the one or the other, 
and how far we ought to work toward a better balance. In 
any case the extremes must be avoided. The child who 
simply imitates will never be completely prepared for a 
full life task, and the obstinate child who always wants to 
be different will be out of contact with the world in which 
he lives. Indeed, training can change both tendencies. 
To develop spontaneity in the imitative mind and to de- 
velop submission in the stubborn mind is an important task 
of the teacher. 

The imitativeness of the child demands that in the 
years of plasticity he be surrounded by influences worthy 
of imitation. These certainly must not be confined to 

176 



IMITATION AND SUGGESTION 

good models for his drawing and good music for his sing- 
ing and good manners for his behavior and good morals 
for his actions; but it must extend over the whole sphere 
of educational interests. All this indicates the extreme 
importance which belongs to the personality of the teacher. 
He is the natural model for the imitation of the pupil. 
His diction must purify the language of the boy who too 
easily imitates the slang of his playmates, his considerate- 
ness and kindness, his conscientiousness and thoroughness, 
his enthusiasm and unselfishness must be a constant source 
of help to the imitative child. Even the originality of the 
child must be controlled by this influence. The example of 
the teacher sets the limits within which the deviations of 
the pupil may move. The teacher must become, in a way, 
the imitated model for an original freedom from imitation. 
The pupil imitates the personal spontaneity of the teacher 
and thus learns the use of his freedom while he is sup- 
ported and guided. 

Yet the full meaning of the importance of the teacher's 
personality for the imitations of the pupil is not entirely 
understood until a further feature of attention is consid- 
ered. We saw that all attention presupposes a certain riv- 
alry of inner impulses. If we see or hear something and 
there is nothing present which would draw our mind in 
another direction, we have a perception but we can hardly 
speak of attention. We saw that the act of attention is 
complete only when we give ourselves to one experience, 
and at the same time suppress rival impressions which 
lead to opposite actions. The ordinary act of attention is 
performed when a certain idea by its strength or its 
emotional value or by its associations or by its frequency 
breaks open the channels of discharge. But now there is 
still another way possible. It may happen that our mind 

177 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHEK 

enters into a state in which the incoming ideas find every- 
thing prepared. The opposite ideas no longer have any- 
chance to come forward at all. They are inhibited, how- 
ever strong they may be. There is no longer a fair rivalry. 
Those ideas for which the mind is prepared have the right 
of way, they lead to actions, control the whole inner life, 
and suppress the opposite ideas. This power of the idea 
no longer depends upon its own merit or its own strength 
or its own value, but upon the setting of the mind and 
brain. The psychologists call such a state suggestibility, 
and the impressions and ideas which influence the sugges- 
tible mind are called suggestions. 

It is difficult to say how such suggestibility can be ex- 
plained. We may suppose that somehow the channels of 
motor discharge become especially wide open. It may be 
that changes in the blood circulation in the finest blood 
vessels of the brain cells are responsible. The best scien- 
tific study of suggestibility can be made, as so often, in the 
extreme cases where the process is exaggerated and there- 
fore shows more distinctly the characteristic features. 
Now we have such abnormally exaggerated suggestibility 
in the case of hypnotism. Hypnotism is indeed nothing 
but abnormally heightened suggestibility. In the hypnotic 
state the mind must accept the offered idea, must attend 
to it and can no longer produce any opposite ideas. Hence 
the hypnotized person acts queerly, as if he had forgotten 
all he had learned in his earlier experience, and is com- 
pletely dependent upon the words of the hypnotizer. Such 
a strong exaggeration of suggestibility takes place, of 
course, only under the artificial conditions of a hypnotic 
treatment. 

But the milder degrees of suggestibility certainly be- 
long to our everyday life and yet are no different in prin- 

178 



IMITATION AND SUGGESTION 

ciple from those abnormal hypnotic appearances. There 
is no true hypnosis except by the influence of another per- 
son. Yet it is not a mysterious reaction of will on will. 
The changes go on entirely in the imagination of the hyp- 
notized person. His own brain enters into a state of less 
resistance during the hypnosis, simply through his belief 
in the power of the hypnotizer. In the same way we must 
conceive of the effect in normal life. It is the belief and the 
confidence in our own mind which makes us suggestible for 
the ideas which certain other persons propose to us. The 
authoritative relation in which the teacher stands to the 
pupil favors this suggestibility in the young minds most 
highly. It is a kind of overattention which the child of- 
fers to the teacher and the result is that the pupil imi- 
tates the teacher's attitudes and actions to a degree which 
goes far beyond the ordinary imitative impulse. 

Of course here, too, individual differences are marked. 
We all are more suggestible in states of fatigue or emotional 
excitement. Women are more suggestible than men. Yet 
if there is one difference most characteristic, it is the fact 
that children are more suggestible than adults. Experi- 
ment has demonstrated this in recent years with exact 
figures. As in the case of attention and imitation, it holds 
true for suggestion that there is no demarcation line be- 
tween the external action and the life in words and ideas. 
We insisted before that every judgment, every acceptance of 
an idea, is a kind of inner decision and action, a new motor 
setting by which we are prepared for a certain later 
movement. Our beliefs are, therefore, just as accessible to 
suggestion as our actions themselves, inasmuch as those be- 
liefs are ultimately preparations for actions. The suggest- 
ibility decreases almost steadily as the child grows older. 
For instance, if a picture is shown to children for a few 

179 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

seconds and then a number of questions asked which refer 
to the content of the picture, we can easily introduce such 
questions as suggest to the child objects that did not exist 
in the picture. If we show the picture of a room in which 
there were no chairs, then ask : " Were there chairs in the 
room ? " a slight suggestion is given. Yet the child who is 
but little suggestible will be able to resist it. But if we 
formulate the question : " How many chairs were in the 
room ? " the resistance will be much more difficult. The 
child then really believes he saw some chairs and gives a 
positive reply. If experiments with such pictures are 
made with children from the seventh to the fifteenth year, 
the result shows that the number of wrong replies with 
the seven-year-old children is almost double the number of 
such products of suggestion with the children of fifteen 
years. 

As a matter of course, the ordinary, trivial things with 
which the child is well acquainted are more easily believed 
than the unusual ones. There are many ways to find quick- 
ly the different degrees of suggestibility in a class room. 
We may show a number of similar pictures one after 
the other and ask the child to keep in mind one in particu- 
lar. After a little while we let the child choose that one 
among the whole group and finally we ask him seriously 
whether he is sure he has chosen the right one. The ex- 
pression of our doubt suggests to the suggestible child a 
revision of the judgment, while the less suggestible will 
stick to his choice. To discriminate quickly between the 
suggestible and the unsuggestible pupils we may show 
them two circles of equal size and write inside one a small 
figure, perhaps 21, and inside the other a large one, 98. 
The suggestible children believe that the circle with the 
higher number is the larger. 

180 



IMITATION AND SUGGESTION 

In any case, however large the individual differences 
may be, the suggestibility of the child is rather strong, and 
a powerful tool is given into the hands of the teacher by it. 
He must not feel discouraged in its use by any of those 
popular misconceptions, as if suggestion and suggestibility 
were something abnormal and therefore unwholesome, per- 
haps even mystical. It is true, as we saw, that suggestibil- 
ity is at the bottom of hypnotism, but the abnormality lies 
not in the suggestibility, but in its exaggeration. Every 
mental state abnormally exaggerated becomes pathological. 
Too much sadness becomes melancholia; too much gayety 
becomes mania. There is no mental state which cannot be 
the symptom of a disease if it becomes too strongly de- 
veloped. The normal suggestion is in itself a healthy, in- 
dispensable factor of mental life. All our social activity 
depends upon it. We could not have any conviction or be- 
lief, we could have no politics and no religion, if our 
minds were not suggestible. Ideas which come from cer- 
tain quarters must find us especially ready to accept them ; 
there lies the strength and the enthusiasm of our life. 

From a psychological point of view, we emphasized that 
suggestion is in its last meaning only a particular form of 
attention. Accordingly, the teacher has not the slightest 
reason to avoid suggestion. But just because it is a power- 
ful influence, he has the more reason to use it considerately 
and wisely. He must never forget that any word spoken 
by him falls on soil prepared to an unusual degree in the 
suggestible mind of the child. He must, therefore, feel 
conscious of the deep effect which his praise and his blame, 
his encouragement and his discouragement must have. 
The pupil who feels in his suggestible mind that the 
teacher believes in him, believes in his good side, in his 
noble qualities, gains confidence in himself and is raised 
13 181 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

to a higher level of activities. The feeling of authority 
produces in a wholesome class room a state which is indeed 
not unlike a mild hypnotic relation. The best effort of the 
child can find therein its most stimulating conditions. But 
at the same time it is a condition in which the slightest 
mistake of the teacher can seriously injure a young mind 
and undermine the whole school life of the child. 



CHAPTEE XX 



WILL AND HABIT 



The psychologist has to chop his material into small 
chapters if he is to present it, and accordingly he must 
speak of the human will as a new factor of mental life 
after dealing at first with thought, imagination, attention, 
and so on. But the psychological reality is not cut into 
such pieces and when we considered attention and thought, 
we already practically had to do with intention and effort 
and will. In the laboratory of the psychologist the will has 
resolved itself into elements just as much as the ideas. 
What are the features of will which are common to every 
true volitional experience ? 

One fact stands in the center. Wherever we have the 
consciousness of a will action, an end must be reached 
which is grasped beforehand by the mind. Everything 
else is secondary. If we do not anticipate the end, we 
never have a will. Wherever an end which can be reached 
by our own deed is held in mind before the action 
itself sets in, we know that we are acting by our own voli- 
tion. It makes no difference whether the end is a per- 
formance of our muscles or a shifting of our thoughts, 
whether we move things or words. If I try to remember 
the name of a bird which I see and it finally comes to my 
mind, I feel its appearance as the result of my will effort ; I 
was seeking the name and secured it by my volition. Of 

183 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

course that name itself was not anticipated in conscious- 
ness. I did not really have the name in my mind; other- 
wise I should not have sought it. But what I was seeking 
was, after all, something which I could not express, but 
which was fully determined beforehand in my mind. I 
knew that it was the name which I had heard and which 
others used, and therefore that unknown thing in my mind 
was really identical with what I finally found when the 
right name slipped in. If, instead of it, the sight of that 
bird had brought to my mind any number of other asso- 
ciations, the memory images of other birds and forests, I 
might have experienced a rich stream of ideas, but what- 
ever came to my mind would have been unintentional, be- 
cause it would not have corresponded to that which I an- 
ticipated. 

Now, to be sure, if we have to do with an external ac- 
tion — if I rise to take a book down in my library, it seems 
as if a new element had come in. Here, too, of course, the 
end is in my mind beforehand. I think of the taking of 
the book before I move my arm toward it; and again it is 
fundamental that the foregoing idea of the end corresponds 
to the final effect. Yet it seems as if the most essential 
part is left out after all. Is there not a middle process, a 
feeling of impulse, an act of decision, between my thinking 
of the book and my getting up and fetching it? Is not 
the whole mystery of the will inclosed and hidden just 
here? But an exact psychology has nothing to do with 
mysteries. A careful analysis can disentangle this last im- 
pulse experience, too. Yes, it is easy to demonstrate that 
in reality this is nothing but the foregoing idea of the first 
movement to be performed in order to reach that final end. 

If I think of taking down the book, the final stage de- 
pends upon the first step, the getting up from my chair, 

184 



WILL AND HABIT 

While I have the book in mind, I am conscious that I need 
a series of movements before I can reach it. If I give up 
the idea of looking into the book, I do not need those aux- 
iliary movements. The entering into the first movement 
decides whether the whole action is to be carried out. Ac- 
cordingly, I must have in consciousness the idea of the first 
motion as the real cue for the whole process. This idea 
of the first movement preceding the movement itself is the 
whole content of that which we usually call the feeling of 
impulse. It is, indeed, of decisive character, inasmuch as 
this idea of the first movement leads to the movement it- 
self. But then it is clear that this impulse feeling is 
again only a special case of that general fact which we 
recognized, that the effect must be preceded by the idea of 
the effect. The impulse feeling is such a foregoing idea of 
the effect with reference to the first bodily movement to be 
performed. A further act of decision does not exist. In 
other words, the whole conscious experience of volition, in- 
cluding the feeling of decision and impulse, is made up of 
the balancing of rival ideas of ends. One of these ideas se- 
cures predominance, associates itself with the idea of the 
first movement to be carried out, and tliis mental state 
discharges itself into the movement. We have the feel- 
ing that it was our own will which brought it about, be- 
cause that final end reached corresponds to the preceding 
idea of the end. 

From this standpoint we see clearly that all our reason- 
ing and imagining and attending rightly gives us the feel- 
ing that w^e ourselves are active in it, that it is an inner 
will activity. All logical thinking is, indeed, different 
from a mere chaotic rush of hazy ideas by the one fact that 
the ideas move toward an end which is anticipated. If 
that movement is made to solve a problem, then its solution 

185 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

is the end which we have in mind and which controls all 
the helping movements, just as the idea of taking down the 
book controls my getting up from the desk. In the same 
way the real artistic play of imagination is not a mere 
dreaming without purpose, but a movement toward an ideal 
end. The end is controlled, not by a problem, but by the 
demands of feeling and emotion. Yet only those ideas 
can move forward and only those chains of thoughts and 
of images become realized which ultimately serve that 
imaginative end. Therefore, we feel our mind in a voli- 
tional effort when we create beauty in our consciousness. 
Still more strikingly does all this hold true for attention. 
Attention is thoroughly a will act, because the end which 
is reached is indeed anticipated in consciousness and the 
whole inner process dominated by that end. The end is 
the unfolding and greater clearness and vividness of the 
given content. All the adaptations and adjustments of the 
body, all the suppressions of antagonistic actions, all the 
inhibitions of opposing ideas serve the end which we have 
in mind beforehand. And for this very reason we feel the 
act of attention as a will act ; and even the so-called invol- 
untary attention becomes a kind of enforced will act. 

But with the same right we might now change the 
point of view and might say that every will act is based on 
attention. The attention given to the idea of an end to 
be reached by our own activity must lead on to the un- 
folding of that idea and that means to its realization. 
How the auxiliary processes are going on we do not know. 
That means that we, as thinking and attending subjects, 
do not know ; as psychologists, we know quite well. As psy- 
chologists, we know that our brain cells are doing the 
work without any cooperation of consciousness. Whether 
we look at it from the point of view of attention or from 

186 



WILL AND HABIT 

the point of view of volition, the end is before our mind 
and the idea works itself out in the millionf old connections 
of our brain and nerve cells, with all their rivalry and 
mutual reenforcement and mutual inhibition and with 
their acquired paths of least resistance. The associations 
arise, the motor impulses are stirred up, the ideas shift, the 
muscles are contracted, all without our conscious selection. 
I do not know which muscles I need to take down my 
book from the shelf ; I think of taking down the book and 
I perceive the movement of taking it. How one has 
brought about the other is no concern of my conscious vo- 
lition. My will relies upon the correct play of this mech- 
anism. But the same is true for the movements of our 
ideas.. I may will to translate a word into another lan- 
guage or to solve a mathematical problem or to think about 
a plan; and in every case the whole array of necessary 
ideas, of inner trains of thoughts, of inhibitions, of words, 
and of inner actions goes on in accordance with the end. 
We are not aware how the idea of the end is securing this 
smooth performance. 

The success of the will depends, therefore, only upon 
the power to hold the idea of the end sufficiently against all 
inhibiting impressions and rival ideas. If the idea of that 
end dominates it will take care of itself and will work itself 
out in those actions by which the end becomes realized. 
And from this point of view, we see that which is essential 
for the will of the pupil. We recognized that the child's > at- 
tention differs from that of the adult in its easy shifting, in 
its inability to stick to one goal. Then exactly this must be 
the fault and weakness of the child's will. What the child 
must slowly learn through his development is the power to 
hold the end of the action steadily before his mind. There 
is no special will faculty to be trained, no special mental 

187 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

power which arranges the transition between the idea 
of the end and its realization. No, it is the attention 
to the end which demands persistent training through 
school life. This training is then essentially a formal one. 
To learn to will this or that is unimportant. The first 
demand is to learn really to bring to action that which 
is aimed at and not to be pushed away by any chance 
impression. We mentioned the strong suggestibility of 
the child which makes him yield easily to outside in- 
fluences. The resistance to the haphazard temptations of 
the surroundings must be reenforced, the overcoming of 
fatigue must be developed; in short, persistence must be 
learned. 

It is not in contradiction with this statement that the 
small child may sometimes show attacks of stubbornness, 
just as the attention of the child may sometimes, for in- 
stance, at play, show an unusual continuity, almost a fas- 
cination. There we have to do with phenomena which be- 
long to the sphere of suggestion. Such stubbornness or 
such fascination of attention are passing autosuggestions. 
The fundamental trait in the child remains the easy shift- 
ing of attention and will alike. The individual differences 
are certainly great and the temperamental variations which 
the lives of the adults around us show can certainly al- 
ready be found in the class room. We know the energetic 
and the phlegmatic child, the impulsive and the lazy one. 
But however strongly the pupils may differ from one an- 
other, their average in persistence and energy of the will 
falls far below that of the average adult and especially be- 
low the average of those adults whose will really had the 
blessing of sound education. 

Here is practically the center of the educational influ- 
ence : to do what we really will means to do our duty, and 

188 



WILL AND HABIT 

no aim of education stands higher than that of securing 
this power to hold before the mind that which we will 
with our deepest volition. The inefficiency of our modern 
educational systems grows, above all, from the neglect 
of this formal training of the will. Mere learning can 
never be a substitute for this training of the mental energy. 
Yes, the habitual rushing to new and ever new impres- 
sions may easily interfere with the development of per- 
sistence in the character. On the other hand, it is evident 
that practically all school material and every group of 
influences may serve the development of the youthful will. 
Everything can be helpful in training the child's mind 
toward a firm maintaining of an end. The smallest work 
carried through with thoroughness serves such training. 
Any work performed superficially hinders it. Whether 
the will is adapted and submits to the one or the other 
kind of material makes no difference, but whether the 
will is allowed to start on one thing and to be pushed 
to something else, or whether it is forced to hold on 
against all difficulties makes the difference which counts 
for life. 

In this connection, again, too much emphasis cannot be 
laid on the motor side of the process. The external bodily 
movement is, after all, that realization of ideas of activity 
which can be most easily controlled and most easily reen- 
forced and which supplies to the young mind most di- 
rectly the sensations of its own activity. Where the will is 
weakly developed, the physical exercises and external 
movements will most immediately throw into consciousness 
a vivid feeling of action and through it the material for 
consciousness of will. Everybody who has had to do with 
feeble-minded children knows how surprising the effect in 
their inner life often is, as soon as their external actions 

189 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

are brought under sharp control, as soon as all meaning- 
less movements are suppressed and the adjusted move- 
ments are enforced. 

There is no more efficient means of training the nor- 
mal child as well. The physical exercises of gymnastics, of 
sport, especially • of manual training are of high service. 
The careful, exact movements in speaking, in writing, in 
drawing, but also in the small practical movements of daily 
behavior, in dressing and eating and sitting and playing 
must furnish the subtler adjustment, thus developing a 
refined power of controlling the ideas of ends. And 
without a sharp demarcation line this motor carefulness 
and thoroughness and persistence in speaking and choosing 
the subtle actions leads to the same characteristics in the 
retaining and forming of words and memory images and 
free ideas. We have seen sufficiently that their develop- 
ment is no less dependent upon motor processes. Needless 
to say that the more subtle these motor responses, the 
higher is the development of the volitional power. The 
strong football man, with all his energy for certain coarse 
responses, may have small intellectual energy. His atten- 
tion has been focused on a narrow field and that has hin- 
dered the development of the will power for the finer and 
subtler elements. The great thinkers are seldom remark- 
able athletes. Everything depends on a skillful leading 
from the coarse actions to the refined ones, from the actions 
dealing with things to the actions dealing with ideas. But 
fundamentally it is the same process; in every case the 
same formal training is needed. The power to will is the 
one function which is entirely dependent upon training or 
neglect. An education which spoils the mind and never 
demands real effort, which simply follows the likings and 
interests, leaves the adolescent personality in a flabby and 

190 



WILL AN'D HABIT 

ineffective state. On the other hand, the pupil whose will 
power is trained will be strong in his sphere, even though 
his gifts are small. 

While this formal training of the will is of superior im- 
portance, no education can neglect the need of directing 
the will toward worthy objects of willing and of enabling 
the mind to carry through its intentions by correct means. 
In both directions psychology must show the way. We saw 
that the individual at his work does not know or under- 
stand how the idea of an end selects the right motor levers 
in his organism. Our ideas and thoughts express them- 
selves in spoken words without our consciously choosing 
the right movements of lips and tongue and vocal cords, 
and in the same way every other action presents itself 
ready made before we know which muscles are needed for 
the activity. No training or learning ought to change or 
would be able lo change this situation. But what can be 
changed and improved by learning is the mechanism 
which transforms the ideas into the right actions. How- 
ever promptly and unconsciously our intention of speak- 
ing or walking, of writing or sewing, of multiplying or 
translating, may be carried out in the brain centers, we 
certainly had to acquire the particular connections in a 
life of education. 

No one of these activities was secured by the child 
without failures at the beginning. The idea of the end, 
even if it was only a simple grasping with the hands or fix- 
ation with the eyes or whistling with the lips, produced 
some motor effect on the given paths of least resistance. 
If such paths had not existed at all, the infant would not 
have had a starting point for his development. But the 
effect reached in every instance was at first only an ap- 
proach to the intended end. Long training is necessary 

191 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

to secure the particular end with satisfying completeness. 
The unsuccessful trial produces a mixed state of mind, a 
satisfaction as far as the effort approaches the aim, a dis- 
satisfaction as far as it falls short. The complex state of 
mind, then, works as a new stimulus for the repetition, 
which maintains those parts which were efficient and re- 
places the wrong impulses by better adjusted ones. Thus, 
the child tries and tries again to grasp and to fixate and 
to whistle, to read and to write, to jump and to throw a 
ball, and at a later age to perform complex activities such 
as typewriting or bicycling. The development is specific; 
the formal training of will is general. The will which has 
learned to resist distractions can hold its own in any field. 
To be sure, to learn whistling with accuracy does not help 
to ride the bicycle or to run the typewriter. Yet this spe- 
cific character of the training must not be exaggerated. It 
is, after all, not only the one specific kind of movement 
which is trained, but the whole group of movements which 
involve similar activities. In training for baseball, we do 
not train for football and still less for piano playing. But 
by training for baseball, we secure general alertness in our 
motor responses. 

Everybody knows from practical life how extremely 
great the individual differences are in such motor devel- 
opment. The delicate experiment of the psychological 
laboratory can easily analyze this ability and can demon- 
strate the improvement in every special feature and the 
influences which contribute to it. It will separate the 
steadiness and precision of movement, the variety of ac- 
tions, the rapidity of the voluntary control, the endurance 
and quickness of the reactions of muscles, the accuracy of 
the coordination, the suppression of symptoms of fatigue 
and many other features. All experiments agree in the re- 

192 



WILL AND HABIT 

suit that the progress is at first a slow and then a more 
rapid one; furthermore, that the progress is not uniform, 
but goes on*by jumps. The influence of physical conditions 
constantly shows itself. For instance, in experiments made 
with tossing and catching two balls at the same time and 
then counting the number of consecutive catchings, the 
maximum figure resulted after long, refreshing walks, the 
minimum after sleepless nights. 

An overstrain of attention may be a hindrance in the 
building up of such powers. The successful effort is the 
most essential condition for progress. Every complete sat- 
isfaction with the result evidently brings about a new set- 
ting and settling in the nerve adjustment. This is full of 
pedagogical significance. It suggests that the mere repe- 
tition alone does not secure progress, inasmuch as only the 
successful practice helps toward the desired setting of the 
central nervous system. If the same movement is simply 
repeated and repeated, fatigue will bring unsuccessful re- 
sults, which directly interfere with the forming of the new 
paths of least resistance. Of course, the chief rule is to 
build up the new, complex movements out of the simple 
ones and to make use of all motor dispositions as soon as 
nature offers them. Every suppression and every indul- 
gence, every stimulation and every neglect of the tenden- 
cies to motor impulse must count in the final outcome. The 
more manifold the starting points for the connections are 
the more easily will they be acquired. For instance, ex- 
periment shows that a melody, with the accompanying text 
of words, is learned twice as soon as the same melody sung 
with the uniform syllable la. Every rule which character- 
izes the formation of these paths for the external move- 
ments is no less binding for those internal movements 
which the words and images require. Here, too, the com- 

193 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

plex must be built up from the simple; here, too, the in- 
crease of ability is not uniform. 

The climax of this development is reached in the for- 
mation of definite habits. The building up of habits repre- 
sents in a way the opposite of the formal training of the 
will. This formal training works toward a power of the 
individual to realize new and ever new ends. The form- 
ing of habits has its purpose in making will effort superflu- 
ous. Of course, there is no contradiction in these two ends, 
inasmuch as the habits disburden the will and thus give to 
it the chance to adapt itself to higher purposes. If our 
reading and writing had never become habitual with us, it 
would absorb our will energy instead of leaving this energy 
free for concentration on the thoughts which we are to 
manifest by our habitual ways of reading and writing. 
The larger the sphere of activities which have become hab- 
itual for us, the greater our freedom of combining these 
movements in the service of greater aims. The danger 
begins only when the habits cover ground which ought to 
be left open to the decisions of the will, inasmuch as every 
habit presupposes a uniformity of conditions. The habit 
is, therefore, harmful to the true aims of the will if it has 
settled in fields in which the conditions vary and where 
new adjustments are needed. Hence habits enrich us 
and make us free to give our efforts to higher aims, but 
habits also enslave us and resist our efforts. Educa- 
tion must be most careful to consider both aspects of habit 
formation. The fundamental rule for the development of 
habits is certainly to begin with a strong resolution and 
never to allow an exception. The number of positive repe- 
titions is by no means so important as the continuity of the 
series. Every exception interferes seriously with the form- 
ing of the new paths of least resistance. The child who is 

194 



WILL AND HABIT 

to develop any habit of action or behavior is served worst 
if a weak indulgence allows him occasional exceptions. 
Every opportunity for repeating ought to be made use of. 

This can be directly translated into the sphere of inner 
activity. The mental habits demand exactly the same 
treatment. To form habits of spelling, or grammar and 
style, or of observation and generalization demand the 
same rules as the habits of good manners at table, or 
of dressing, or of bicycling. In the world of ideas, too, 
every slip counts and every break undermines the new 
tendency. And in the case of mental and physical habits 
alike it is important to acquire them in definite forms and 
never to let them go on by chance. It is much easier to 
learn precise habits than loose ones. 

Finally, we have said that the will demands the right 
guidance. The end to be willed cannot be left to haphaz- 
ard conditions. Every moral factor in the school life, 
every suggestion and every example of the teacher, every 
ethical doctrine of history and literature must contribute. 
But that leads us to the chief determinant of our volition, 
to the feeling and the emotions. 



CHAPTER XXI 



FEELING 



The chief motive of human actions lies in feelings and 
emotions. If education is to secure certain actions, the 
safest way will be by developing certain likes and dislikes, 
pleasures and displeasures, enthusiasms and aversions. 
The aesthetic, moral, and religious feelings, the personal 
love and hate, sympathies and antipathies will determine 
the individual life. But here, again, the separations of psy- 
chology suggest too much of a demarcation line, as if the 
feeling and the will were completely detached factors. 

The word feeling is easily misunderstood in its psycho- 
logical meaning. The usage of the word in daily life lacks 
precision. We may discriminate, even in the simplest so- 
called feeling, two states. We may call a headache a feel- 
ing, but that headache contains, first, a certain content 
which we dislike, and, secondly, this dislike. We dislike 
the headache not otherwise than a disagreeable taste or 
smell. The pain of our headache, which is the object of 
our dislike, is then only a sensation, just like a foul smell 
or a sharp taste, which we detest, too. In ordinary life we 
call the pain sensation itself also a feeling, while we should 
not call the smell a feeling, simply because every pain sen- 
sation is so constantly connected with our dislike, while 
smells, like sounds or colors, may be sometimes disliked, 
sometimes liked, and oftener may be indifferent. We are, 

196 



FEELING 

therefore, more accustomed to detach the other sensations 
from our liking and disliking, while the pain is so con- 
stantly accompanied by a dislike that we are less accus- 
tomed to separate the two elements. Exactly the same 
holds true for the opposite — for those bodily sensations of 
tickling or organic gratification and relief. They also are 
fusing with our attitude of liking so completely that we 
consider them as a unity and call the sensation contained 
also a feeling. In the stricter scientific use of the term we 
must confine the word feeling to those attitudes of liking 
and disliking ; the pain and the relief are then merely sen- 
sations, like touch and sound. 

If now we discuss the simplest case, that of the dislike 
in a pain or of the liking in a pleasant experience, it be- 
comes clear that the relation to the will action is not simply 
that of a preceding motive. The pain feeling makes us 
withdraw our body; the other stimulus, the agreeable one, 
makes us approach with our body. In the one case we aim 
toward breaking up the unpleasant intrusion, in the other 
we aim toward the continuation of the pleasant impression. 
But can we now really say that the liking makes us ap- 
proach the object and the disliking makes us shrink away 
from it ? Is not our shrinking rather that which furnishes 
us with the feeling of the dislike and the approach that 
which gives us the feeling of liking? Is it not merely a 
different standpoint from which we look on the same fact, 
if we call it in one respect a feeling and in another respect 
an action ? If we consider that reaction with reference to 
the effect to be reached, we call it an action. But if the 
sensations which these activities of approach and escape 
furnish are used for the apperception of the stimulus, then 
they stand simply as expressions of liking and disliking. 
The stimulus is disliked, inasmuch as it is joined by a 
14 197 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

feeling of our repudiation, and that means by our escape 
and rejection. The stimulus is liked, inasmuch as its per- 
ception is joined by the awareness of our approach. 

Thus, the liking or disliking does not really precede 
the action, but is itself an action which works toward a 
continuation or discontinuation of the stimulus. A reac- 
tion becomes feeling tone if it is not apperceived as an 
activity, but as an interpretation of the thing which pro- 
voked it. Wherever the action leads to an external change 
of the thing, of course we naturally take it as an action. 
If the change refers to ourselves, we are more inclined to 
interpret it as a feeling. But usually both aspects can be 
combined. The stimulus awakes the idea of the reaction, 
and this reaction attitude becomes the feeling value of the 
outer thing. But in the next pulse beat of our mind we 
connect the same reaction with its practical consequences in 
the world, and under that point of view consider it as a 
will action. Then we have the impression that the feeling 
value preceded the will action, while in reality we only 
have two aspects of the same fact. 

Certainly it might be answered that this approach or 
escape was determined by the foregoing pain or relief sen- 
sation, and that even if psychology does not care to call 
them feelings, they represent the element which guides the 
action. This is quite true, but then these elements have 
no privileged role. Every stimulus may produce reactions. 
The light which reaches our retina brings about an eye 
movement; the sound which comes from one side produces 
the turning of our head. Each quality, each locality and 
each intensity of stimulation has its characteristic response. 
Hence, the pain and pleasure sensations produce the reac- 
tion, not on account of their particular disagreeableness 
or agreeableness, but on account of their particular quality. 

198 



FEELING 

The disagreeable smell is just as much a motive for action 
as toothache, and the agreeable smell just as much as the 
pleasant tickling. But the real feelings, the liking and dis- 
liking as such, do not lead to the act, but are actions. 

From this standpoint we understand better the present- 
day discussion as to the manifoldness of feelings. Some 
psychologists claim that there is only one pair of feelings, 
liking and disliking; others that there is also a feeling of 
tension and relaxation; others that there is still a third 
pair, excitement and rest. But with exactly the same 
right we might add any number of feelings, or, better, any 
number of pairs of feelings, inasmuch as it is characteristic 
that we cannot think of any feelings otherwise than in a 
relation of pairs. This relation itself already points to 
the action character of every feeling. Indeed, an action 
always demands its opposite. The truth is simply that any 
mode of action perceived as interpretation of the thing 
which excites it becomes a feeling for us. 

By feeling we merely mean the reaction of our person- 
ality on the impression, and we can have as many feelings 
as we have types of reactions. Some impressions certainly 
make us excited and others bring repose to our muscular 
system; some produce a tension which seeks relief, and 
others secure a relaxation; some give to the whole motor 
system a slow, solemn rhythm, and others produce a hilar- 
ity of light, easy reactions. There is no end to this mani- 
foldness. Yet it is not by chance that we are usually in- 
clined to consider that one pair, pleasure and displeasure, 
as the fundamental feelings, inasmuch as they correspond 
to the most fundamental reactions. Pleasure is the reac- 
tion by which the continuation of the impression is secured, 
and displeasure is the reaction by which the stimulus is 
broken off. No other reactions can compare in importance. 

199 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

We may add at once that naturally this continuation is 
usually secured by a movement of expansion and the break- 
ing off by a movement of contraction. The group of mus- 
cle sensations which accompany a general expansion thus 
stand for pleasure in our self-consciousness and the con- 
tracting sensations for displeasure. 

Yet this is only the simplest case, and even on this 
level the situation becomes more complicated. By the in- 
herited disposition of the nervous system many secondary 
factors help to reenforce such reactions. The stimulus 
which demands a breaking off or continuation spreads in 
the central nervous system toward other centers which reg- 
ulate the breathing and the heart beat, the tension of the 
blood vessels, the glands, the lower nerve centers — in short, 
the whole peripheral organism. The pulse becomes quicker 
or slower, the limbs become more or less filled with blood, 
which means a change in the blood supply to the brain; 
the breathing changes in rhythm and depth; and all 
these functions seem to stand in some useful relation to the 
final reaction. On the other hand, all these reactions 
also contribute certain organic sensations, so that if a pain 
or a tickling comes to the mind, a whole group of organic 
reverberations joins and gives background to the reaction. 

This repeats itself with practically the same means 
when life leads from the interest in the outer world to the 
experiences in words, and signs, and inner images, and 
memories, and imaginations. The reactions which at first 
have been acquired for the outer things now become sym- 
bols and expressions for those inner experiences, with the 
same effect of working toward the continuance of the 
agreeable or the stopping of the disagreeable mental states. 
The idea is pleasant if the whole personality reacts by all 
its motor responses and associations in such a way that it 

200 



FEELING 

approaches, reenforces, maintains the idea, and the inner 
state is unpleasant if the whole inner movement works 
toward stopping the content. The more the child grows 
toward the apprehension of a world of words and signs and 
memories the more these inner reactions prevail, and the 
habitual resounding of those organic sensations which origi- 
nally refer to the outer world continue to give color to the 
feelings of the inner world. 

This situation complicates itself in the so-called emo- 
tions. Again the reaction is the central purpose, but here 
the emphasis lies on those organic processes and inner 
movements which are to secure and to reenforce the reac- 
tion. We might say that the emotion has to focus the 
whole organism on a particular line of action. Just as at- 
tention focuses the idea against all inhibiting rival ideas, 
the emotion focuses reaction and inhibits all other possible 
activities. The more complex our life the more manifold 
are the impulses to action which are interfering with one 
another at any time. The emotion is an organic wave 
which sweeps over the whole central nervous system and 
suppresses and cuts off everything which is not related to 
the source of the emotional excitement. Certainly the 
strength of this energetic reaction brings with it a vast 
overflow of energy, and therefore many superfluous side ef- 
fects result. But they are unavoidable in the interests of 
the great task of concentrating the whole organism on one 
line of reaction. In this sense the emotion, too, does not 
precede the action, but is itself an action; and yet, if we 
emphasize more those processes of organic reverberation, 
those changes in the associations and motor settings, those 
vague inner states which reenforce the reaction, we recog- 
nize at last that part which may be said to stand between 
the impression and the reaction itself. It becomes daily 

201 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

more probable that these " vague " states are the mental 
accompaniments of toxic changes in the brain, resulting 
from the activity of certain glands. 

If the undeveloped feeling of the child were to be char- 
acterized by one feature, it certainly would be its lack of 
steadiness. If at first we confine ourselves to the simple, 
fundamental reaction of liking and disliking, we must 
notice the rapid changes and the haphazard character of 
such feelings in the child. His laughing and crying are 
near together, and the flickering mood is entirely con- 
trolled by immediate impressions. At first only the states 
of his own body excite feeling. Hunger and fatigue and 
bodily irritation are disliked, mild stimulation and nour- 
ishment are liked; later, the things of the outer world 
and the fellow beings give pleasure or displeasure, and 
finally the stage is reached when words are substituted for 
things, and the objects of thought become the sources 
of satisfaction and dissatisfaction. But at every stage the 
equilibrium of the young mind is unstable, the feelings are 
shifting, just as the attention shifts. 

Moreover, the child's feeling is narrow and egotistic. 
It is an expression of those biological instinctive reactions 
which are inborn in the disposition of the nervous system 
and which are necessary for every organism. But for man 
they must be only the starting point. As long as the feel- 
ings are only reactions on the immediate excitement they 
are unadapted to the complexity of the social life in which 
everybody has to spend his days. Nature provides only 
the animal feelings. The whole world of civilization has 
to furnish a system of artificial feelings, which constitute 
the value of our social existence. The simplest aesthetic 
appreciation, the faintest trace of ethical estimation, is 
due to a development for which nature does not provide. 

202 



FEELING 

Here we have reached the point from which it becomes 
clear why we took so much pains to analyze what is loosely 
called feeling. It may seem quite indifferent whether our 
pleasure and displeasure is only a vague, general, inner 
state which cannot be described any further, or whether 
it is really, as we described it, essentially a motor reaction. 
But if it comes to the question of education, it makes all 
the difference. If the feelings were really what popular 
psychology is inclined to make out of them, the task of 
their training and education and artificial molding would 
necessarily seem hopeless. The teacher would be obliged 
to stand by and wait for the natural growth. What could 
he do to change the resounding of the mind if nature 
caused such or such a wave of organic excitement to spread 
over the nervous system ? He could not change candy tast- 
ing agreeably and cod liver oil disagreeably any more than 
he could change the grass looking green and the sky blue. 
There would be no handle and no hook by which the feel- 
ings could be grasped. Even admonitions and punishments 
could not better the situation. The teacher would have to 
confess that, while he might compel the child or persuade 
the child to swallow the disgusting cod liver oil in spite of 
his dislike, he would not be able to change the displeasure 
into pleasure. 

The ordinary view of feelings forces on the teacher, if 
he thinks about it consistently at all, a discouraging pessi- 
mism. The most important factor of inner life seems out- 
side his control. He must simply wait for the changes. 
He certainly will notice how the changes come. He may 
find that the little children like the colors of yellow and 
blue best, while grown-up people more often prefer red. 
But he must wait with idle hands. How different is his 
perspective if he recognizes the motor element in every feel- 

^03 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

ing and if he -understands that the feeling itself results 
from the reaction ! Nature, indeed, has provided the num- 
berless organic responses which slowly unfold themselves in 
the growing organism, but these responses, inasmuch as 
they are grouped about definite motor activities, are under 
the control of attention and will, and are therefore acces- 
sible to all the influences which can play on voluntary con- 
trol of body and mind. The unsteady plasticity of the 
feeling reactions in youth even furnish the most favor- 
able conditions for such an influence, and the suggestibility 
of the child and the ease with which habits are formed in 
youth improve the situation. 

Those movements in which the feeling expresses itself 
are involuntary, but every one of them is under voluntary 
influence — that is, the attention turned to the idea of the 
movement can change or inhibit it. Suggest to the child 
that he take the disagreeable medicine with laughing face 
and with a wide expansion of the whole body, that he open 
wide his eyes and stretch his arms — in short, try to secure 
artificially all those motions by which a great pleasure 
would express itself. If in this way he opens wide the 
channels of discharge for those movements which are oppo- 
site to the involuntary reaction, and if he repeats that ex- 
periment with a little persistence and energy, very soon the 
disagreeable medicine will lose its unpleasantness and be- 
come neutral. On the other hand, let him often take an 
indifferent stimulus with the external expression of rejec- 
tion and disgust, contracting the muscles, drawing up the 
face as if to repel the intrusion, and very soon the connec- 
tion between the sensation and the rejecting attitude be- 
comes habitual and the indifference changes into displeas- 
ure. 

Such overcoming of the instinctive reactions represents 

204 



FEELING 

an extreme case, but thousandfold are the opportunities 
for the changes where no deep organic instinct is to be 
extinguished, but where slight tendencies are to be re- 
shaped and to be adjusted to the social ends. Imitation 
will naturally be the most important vehicle. At first the 
child does not care at all for beautiful decorations. He 
sees things only with reference to their usefulness. ISTow 
let him go through the motor response of acceptance and 
welcome when he is shown designs and beautiful orna- 
ments ; awake in him a new habitual reaction toward those 
harmonious relations, and new aesthetic feelings will arise 
in him. He will acquire feeling states which many a 
grown-up man in the social world around us has never 
known, because his education lacked the training in those 
motor responses. Hence, he who did not have this train- 
ing stands before a picture only with an interest in the 
story told in the painting or before works of arts and crafts 
only with the practical interest in the usefulness of the 
thing, without appreciating the real beauty. 

To a very high degree this principle can also be applied 
to the most complex emotions. We can reenforce and we 
can inhibit them ; we can shift them and enrich them by a 
voluntary influence on those reactions which stand in the 
center of the emotions. These emotions have slowly grown 
through the development of new instinctive responses. 
The infant knows no fear, but he experiences certain com- 
plex reactions upon sudden strong stimuli. After frequent 
use these new paths slowly open with every new unusual 
impression. The reactions of astonishment or of anger 
evidently begin as motor responses, which work backward 
on the inner experience. The tenderness of the child for 
his mother begins even with obvious imitations entirely 
trained by the characteristic movements in connection with 

205 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

certain tactual and visual sensations. And from such 
simple starting points one emotion after another is built 
up, and leads from the reaction on things slowly to the re- 
action on signs and symbols. Helpfulness, sympathy, and 
richer and richer moral emotions are formed if the right 
suggestions are given for the motor responses, if the right 
models are brought into the child's sphere for imitation, 
if by instruction and practical life ample training is offered 
for the expression and forming of habits. Truly, although 
the emphasis on the motor aspect of the emotional life may 
appear merely a topic for discussion among the theoretical 
psychologists, it becomes a life question for the teacher, 
who ought never to forget that the instinctive reactions are 
the raw material which he must use, and which he can in- 
fluence by all the means which mold human actions. 

This does not exclude the existence of individual dif- 
ferences in the emotional disposition, just as in memory or 
attention, and probably no education can or would try to 
extinguish all traces of these varieties. The optimistic 
enthusiast whose whole system is inexhaustible in its im- 
pulses to action will remain different from the phlegmatic 
person whose reactions are slow and weak and to whom the 
world is, accordingly, more or less indifferent. Especially 
those great individual variations of temperament in which 
the changes in blood circulation and gland activity and 
excitability stand in the foreground will be less accessible 
to educational influence. Still less ought we to think of a 
caricature of the proposed view by fancying that a mere 
external gesture could at all change a deep-seated emotion 
or feeling. The more our life has become adjusted to 
words and signs and memory images the more does the 
importance of those activities which refer to external 
things decrease. We may keep the emotion of grief, even 

206 



FEELING 

if we smile in order to hide it, and we may cover our im- 
pulse to fight by polite phrases. The reaction of the adult 
person contains too many internal elements still to need 
the external coarse action. Those various motor impulses 
go on, nevertheless, in the highest layer of brain cells, and 
they give us all the organic sensations of the emotion and 
all the associations and feelings which characterize it, even 
if their ultimate expression is stopped in lower centers of 
the nervous system and an indifferent routine movement is 
artificially substituted for the natural expression. In such 
cases the external smiling may even sharpen the feeling of 
contrast with the internal displeasure. But if we change 
artificially those internal responses, then we can really 
influence the emotion itself. There is no emotion which 
cannot be educated by attention, will, suggestion, imita- 
tion — in short, by all those factors which change the motor 
response. 

We emphasized repeatedly the reasons why the recogni- 
tion of the motor factor in mental life is of such funda- 
mental importance for the explanation of life. Everything 
which goes on in the sensorial spheres shows in itself no 
principle of organization. With the actions it is otherwise. 
Those motor processes involve a characteristic organiza- 
tion. The impulse toward one action must reenforce the 
actions which lead toward the same end and must inhibit 
and suppress the actions which would lead to the opposite 
end. This mutual interplay of the motor processes gives 
a definite shape to the chaos of mental life. Nowhere 
can this be felt more strongly than in the emotional 
sphere. As long as the feelings are understood only in the 
usual way as affective elements which are different from 
the sensations, but which are experienced just like the sen- 
sations, and which simply occur on account of unknown 

207 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

organic processes in the brain, we have no means to under- 
stand how they influence all the other mental functions. 
And yet their influence on attention and volition, on inter- 
est and effort, is evident. This is changed as soon as we 
recognize the motor setting which is given with every feel- 
ing. If every feeling is fundamentally a new disposition 
for action, brought about by a new opening and closing of 
paths for motor discharge, then it is evident that these 
other actions which we call attention and volition must be 
constantly influenced by the changes in feeling. 

This intimate relation between the new motor situation 
produced by every feeling and the rest of the mental life 
gains a fresh importance in the light of recent studies in the 
sphere of abnormal psychical processes. The physicians 
have found that many disturbances of the mind, primarily 
those in hysteria, are the results of emotional experiences 
which, as mere experiences, have long been forgotten 
and have faded away, but the feeling effect of which 
works on in the cells of the brain. There may have been a 
disagreeable life experience which did not come to its nor- 
mal expression and discharge. The expression was sup- 
pressed, and thus the motor impulse was not carried into 
the regular channels. The result is that a certain group 
of nerve paths is out of gear and now has a disturbing 
influence on the ordinary actions. Such a long-forgotten 
feeling produces mischief in the whole mental life, and 
may become the germ of a disease in a brain which is weak 
by its constitutional disposition. 

Now, we are not speaking of disease here, but we may 
profit from those observations of the physicians for the un- 
derstanding of the normal happenings in the healthy brain. 
We may draw the consequence that in every mind, and 
especially in the young, plastic mind, strong feelings, even 

208 



FEELING 

if their source has long been forgotten, may have an impor- 
tant influence on the development of the impulses and at- 
tentions and activities. The pleasant feelings will have a 
reenforcing, the unpleasant an inhibiting influence. Too 
often we see a child who simply does not do his best. It is 
as if something inhibits his strongest energies. He be- 
comes apathetic and careless; he makes no effort. If we 
look to the bottom, we find that it has all resulted from a 
loss of self-confidence, and that the ultimate source of this 
lack of self-confidence is an inner inhibition which origi- 
nated with some unpleasant accident, perhaps long forgot- 
ten. Some disagreeable emotion may have created a new 
motor setting which, by its inhibitory power, paralyzes the 
normal activities. Nothing is more likely to be responsible 
for such a situation than an injustice or ill-considered 
blame from the teacher. On the one hand it finds the 
pupil's mind in an especially suggestible state, on the other 
the unpleasant emotion cannot come to a full expression. 
The child must bear the injustice silently. A hasty, angry 
word or an unfriendly expression of mistrust on the part 
of the teacher, which may have pierced into the mind and 
settled there, may inhibit the normal mental life for years 
to come, even though the child no longer remembers the 
particular offense. The responsibility of the teacher grows 
in these directions the more, the better we understand the 
mechanism of the mind. 

There are several remedies possible. Ordinarily, of 
course, the mere passing of time is the simplest. The 
motor setting slowly loses its strength and new attitudes 
may develop. But too many brains do not show this im- 
provement; the disturbance becomes more and more ag- 
gravated. The child loses all his joy in work; he lags 
behind or is unmanageable. A complete change of impres- 

209 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHEK 

sions, with entirely new excitements, entering into a new 
school or living in a new town, produces a perfect reset- 
ting. Yet the chief remedy is the one which can be de- 
duced from the findings of the physicians. They have dis- 
covered that such a disturbance from an earlier unpleasant 
feeling can be completely cured if that earlier emotional 
experience is again brought to memory and is allowed to 
express itself forcibly. As soon as the emotion has once 
discharged itself in its normal way that pathological side- 
tracking comes to an end and the whole mental life is re- 
lieved. 

In a corresponding way, the fundamental remedy for 
such a paralyzing emotion of the pupil is also the new 
awaking of the source of the trouble and the securing of a 
normal discharge. The full confidence of the child must 
be won, his deepest thoughts and feelings must be slowly 
brought to the surface. He must get a chance to disburden 
his mind of all those suppressed discomforts and must 
again come to harmonious unity of inner life. This feel- 
ing of confidence in the teacher, this intimacy which allows 
him to express his deepest excitement with frankness, will 
restore his confidence in his own actions and completely 
change the estranged child. But, indeed, the better way is 
never to allow such an extreme situation to occur, where a 
radical cure is needed, but to have this intimate confi- 
dential relation from the start. The teacher who has the 
sympathy of the child will easily remove such inhibitory 
influences before they grow into serious interferences with 
the efficiency and progress of the pupils. 

The inhibitory influence of the unpleasant emotion is 
paralleled by the reenforcing influence of the joyful atti- 
tude. Here, too, the source of the pleasant excitement 
may be long forgotten, but the new attitude may continue 

210 



FEELIN'G 

as a power for the strengthening of all activities. Joy 
works as an autosuggestion. We saw that suggestion 
indeed demands a new setting of the mind by which the 
suggested ideas have a fuller chance for their unfolding, 
while the opposites are suppressed. The joyful emotion 
has exactly this inspiring effect. If it has been implanted 
in the mind by the words and the deeds of the teacher, 
everything which refers to the school work will receive this 
autosuggestive, strengthening impulse. The interest, the 
eifort, the industry of the pupil are the natural conse- 
quences. Effort is truly nothing but the working of auto- 
suggestion, and no teacher who is aware of his opportuni- 
ties can afford to overlook this strongest aid for his own 
purposes. 



CHAPTER XXII 



INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES 



In our survey of the mental life of youth we have 
found individual differences in every field which we ap- 
proached. The differences of memory and association were 
as marked as the differences of attention and volition. 
Thus, we do not have to approach a new problem, if finally 
we consider the manifoldness of mental individualities. 
No two children have the same faces, and the physical ex- 
amination can show with much detail that in other respects 
as well no two organisms are alike. It is well known how 
the modern, anthropological, police methods identify any 
man by the mere imprint of his fingers. All this points 
to the innumerable manifoldness of bodily structure; and 
yet the mental variations are no less bewildering in their 
variety. 

It is true that many of the personal differences which 
we find among adults are products of their training and 
education and profession and life experience. The years 
have sharpened the contrasts and have introduced varia- 
tions which would have shown less at a tender age. But, 
after all, the child who enters into the classroom of the 
school also has already had a rich life history. The influ- 
ence of his nursery, the personal factors of his family life, 
the surroundings of nature and of the home, six years of 
play and six years of effort to explore the world, six years 

212 



INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES 

of successes and failures in walking and speaking and 
keeping well, have already molded the young, plastic mind 
and have heightened the individual differences. Every ac- 
cident of child life counts, every disease and every act of 
neglect, every kindness and every encouragement has left 
its traces. The toys put into the child's hands, the talks 
carried on in his presence, good and bad nourishment, dis- 
turbed and undisturbed sleep, fresh and poor air, bodily 
care and bodily mistreatment, have summed up their 
effects before the child passes through the door of the 
schoolroom. 

Yet the most fundamental differences remain those 
which are conditioned by the inborn dispositions. Of 
course, that does not mean that they are all developed and 
really existing at the time of birth. One month after 
another brings them to reality, and many may not appear 
before the period of adolescence, but the germs are present 
at birth and inner factors determine their unfolding. 
Every one knows that in regard to the mental equipment 
of the genius. No music lessons make a Beethoven, no 
physics instruction a Newton, no careful education a Kant, 
and no drawing lessons a Michael Angelo. But the case of 
the genius is no different in principle from the average 
Within the ordinary limits, the lack of talent may be re- 
placed by persistent training. The pupil without talent for 
mathematics may, with great industry, reach the same 
point which the talented boy can reach without any effort. 
The original difference may thus disappear in the final 
result of the average boys, while it can never be leveled up 
where unusual talent is present. Yet the inborn difference 
of gift remains no less marked in the middle and lower 
region. 

Moreover, these differences which exist from the start 
15 213 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

are certainly no less fundamental in feelings and emotions 
and volitions. It is^quite true that the life experiences 
shape the personalities; and yet to a much higher degree 
the personalities shape the life experiences. It is the in- 
born temperamental disposition and the native way of re- 
action which gives to the surroundings and to the outer in- 
fluences of life meaning and significance. Under exactly 
the same conditions the one experiences the pleasant and 
the other the unpleasant stimuli, the one remembers the 
hours of sunshine and the other the hours of storm. 

We have seen throughout that subjective response de- 
termines even the perception of the world. We inhibit 
and do not perceive that to which we are not attend- 
ing. By our reactions we become conscious of that towaj'd 
which we are acting, and every variation of our motor 
response has a backward influence on our experiencing of 
the world. The community certainly needs the variety of 
human gifts, and we should not be served better by a color- 
less uniformity. Social organization even finds room for 
the ungifted. What is needed is only a most careful in- 
sight into the variations. 

The teacher who ignores this manifoldness of disposi- 
tions and works with an abstract scheme of human nature 
must be handicapped in his best efforts. A certain amount 
of individualization is therefore a wholesome demand of 
modern pedagogy, provided that it is not misunderstood to 
be a mere yielding to the personal likings of the child. 
The adjustment to the individual variations ought to se- 
cure on the one side the fullest possible development of per- 
sonal gifts in the interest of the individual and of the com- 
munity. It ought to provide, on the other side, the best 
possible stimulation of those mental functions which nature 
has neglected in the particular case. In a negative sense, 

214 



INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES 

of course, it must also suggest a certain limitation for the 
demands of the teacher. Not every pupil is capable of 
reaching every goal. 

There is no doubt that this whole group of problems, 
which evidently is purely psychological, is nowadays still 
much neglected in the schoolroom. The teacher judges the 
individual differences only from the final results; and yet 
these results are determined by combinations of many 
functions. Tlie teacher is hardly aware whether the poor 
work results from insufficient memory, or attention, or 
volition, or imagination, or reasoning, or sense perception, 
from an easy fatigue, or poor association, or clumsy reac- 
tion, from defective experience or inhibited will. On the 
other hand, even special gifts and talents may remain un- 
noticed and may be neglected until they are crippled. Of 
course, the teacher knows in a vague way that certain chil- 
dren are bright and others stupid ; that some are slow and 
others quick ; that some remember better than others ; that 
some are attentive and others restless ; but he is hardly pre- 
pared to analyze any one of the factors into its real psy- 
chological components and to disentangle carefully the 
natural dispositions and the results of training and of ef- 
fort. 

Moreover, it might be asked whether the science of psy- 
chology was really prepared to give desirable advice until 
recently. On the whole, it may be said that psychology in 
its scientific shape, the modern experimental type, neg- 
lected the problem of the individual differences to a sur- 
prising degree both in the case of adults and of children. 
But, after all, this was not surprising, if we remember the 
origin of experimental psychology. It arose in opposition 
to a vague mental philosophy. Therefore its chief aim 
naturally was to seek scientific laws, to seek regularities in 

215 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

the life of the mind which would be as general as the laws 
of physics and chemistry. This search for the laws of the 
mind for a long time suppressed the interest in that which 
is not common to all minds and which differs from man to 
man. Hence, the first decades of the work in the psy- 
chological laboratories of the world showed a uniform 
neglect of the personal characteristics, and only in most 
recent years has experimental psychology taken a new 
turn and entered with vigor into the careful analysis 
of individual traits. The more experimental pedagogy 
has branched off from experimental psychology the more 
this problem of differentiation has come to the fore- 
ground. And yet science is only in the beginning of its 
mastery. 

Experiment can approach the whole situation with 
two different questions. First, we might ask whether the 
special mental functions can be diagnosed by experimental 
tests and examinations. The mental life of a pupil is con- 
stituted of many activities : are we able to measure, to 
study and to determine each of them by certain definite ex- 
perimental inquiries? The pedagogical laboratory would 
furnish us with the most serviceable tools if it should give 
us devices to study and measure fundamental functions, 
like attention, reasoning, or memory by simple experi- 
ments, so that we might recognize the whole from a small 
fraction. But there would be a second possibility. The 
experimentalist might ask whether there exists a correla- 
tion between various functions — a correlation which might 
make it possible to recognize the whole mental make-up by 
testing one particular function. A number of variations 
might stand in such intimate correspondence that the pres- 
ence of one would indicate and guarantee the presence of 
the others, just as a physician might recognize a wliole 

216 



INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES 

complex of symptoms, and thus diagnose the disease, from 
one special characteristic trait. 

This latter problem has been approached repeatedly in 
recent years. For instance, pupils can be grouped in ac- 
cordance with their general standing in school work, from 
the most excellent to the poorest, and then a number of 
mental tests can be made, endeavoring to find one which 
shows results parallel to the quality of the work. On such 
a basis it has been claimed that certain achievements of the 

m 

attention correspond. to the general efficiency of the pupil. 
Others believe that they have discovered that the ability to 
discriminate certain sensations — for instance, small differ- 
ences of tone pitch — is characteristic of the standing in 
school. Still other results have been reported. But if we 
approach the situation without prejudice, we soon discover 
that not one of the proposed tests has been accepted by 
later investigators, and that at present we are without any 
sign of success. 

We can emancipate ourselves from this rather vague 
grouping of pupils in accordance with their standing in 
school and, instead, may seek the correlation between the 
various mental functions. For example, we may study 
twenty or thirty different aspects of mental life, each one 
to be expressed in exact figures. Then we may try to find 
out whether those who are best in some tests are also the 
best in certain others, and, correspondingly, whether those 
who are worst in some are worst in others. We may seek 
those who are quickest in calculation or who remember 
the greatest number of words, or who show the most con- 
centrated attention, or who have the sharpest discrimina- 
tion of sensations, or who show the most energetic will 
impulse, or who are least quickly fatigued, or who solve a 
logical problem most correctly, or who have the most vivid 

217 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

imagination. The question arises: is there a uniform re- 
sult, or does excellence in one respect go together with 
poor results in another group of tests ? Simple mathemat- 
ical formulae allow an exact measurement of these correla- 
tions, and they have been applied to most widely different 
psychical acts. Yet again the outcome ought to be ac- 
knowledged on the whole as so far a negative one. 

Certainly, if we examine many functions, we always 
find some which show almost identical results, but these 
are usually functions which belong intimately together and 
which ultimately contain a common element. Those who 
are quick in their movements may also be quick in their 
thoughts. But we have seen that the rhythm of both proc- 
esses points back to the same source. In a similar way, it 
is perfectly justifiable to take the handwriting as an ex- 
pression of many correlated features, and thus to use it as 
a diagnostic means. It may indicate general accuracy, or 
energy, or superficiality, or carelessness, or affectation, or 
self-consciousness, and so on. But we have no facts which 
prove that a particular kind of intelligence may allow the 
conclusion that a particular kind of temperament, or of 
volition, exists along with it. Moreover, the frequent over- 
development or underdevelopment of certain functions, 
together with an average development in most other func- 
tions, suggests from the start that such correlation is not 
even probable. In fact, we sometimes find marvelous mem- 
ory with poor intelligence, sharp intelligence with complete 
obtuseness of emotion, richest emotion with narrow 
thought. The weak-minded men and the men of genius 
both show the far-reaching independence of certain funda- 
mental traits of mind. Is it not, after all, this inde- 
pendence which gives to mankind the abundant manifold- 
ness of social material, allowing in the inborn dispositions 

218 



INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES 

a multiplicity of combinations which secures endless orig- 
inality? The aim of bringing the working of a whole 
personality into a simple formula may therefore remain 
hopeless for all time. But all this only emphasizes the im- 
portance of answering the other question — how we can 
study with experimental exactitude all those various func- 
tions of which the mosaic of a mind is composed. 

We may carry on such tests of psychical tendencies and 
capacities in various fields. The list of these has been 
greatly enlarged by psychologists and educators in recent 
years. To point only to a few typical tests which might 
easily be carried out in a classroom, we might mention 
first the study of associations and memories. We show a 
series of ten pictures, and with each one we call a number 
of two figures; one pair of picture and figure may be re- 
peated twice, one pair may be emphasized, perhaps by giv- 
ing a number of three figures, and thus surprising the 
class. Of course, one pair has the advantage of being the 
first which came to the mind and another pair has the spe- 
cial position of being the last which may linger in the 
mind. Now we go over the pictures once more in a dif- 
ferent order and let the children write the numbers which 
had been called with the pictures. There will be some 
who remember that which was repeated, others that which 
was emphasized, others that which came first and others 
that which came last. The frequency, the vividness, the 
freshness, and the recency, therefore, have different influ- 
ence on different minds. No doubt, there we have to do 
with different mental constitutions. To mention the faults 
of those minds, we might say that it is a commonplace mind 
which offers the best chance to that which came frequently 
and a superficial mind which sticks to that which came 
most recently, an emotional mind which holds what came 

219 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

with a vivid surprise and a suggestible mind which gives 
predominance to that which came first. 

To point in another direction, we may give a hundred 
words and let the child write down what comes into his 
mind first with each word. Then we quickly find those 
tendencies which we mentioned when we discussed the as- 
sociation process. A concrete thing may awake in some 
minds another thing of the same order, in some, a part of 
the given thing, in some a larger whole. And correspond- 
ingly, an abstract idea will awake in one type a coordinated 
conception, in another a superordinated conception, and 
in a third, a subordinated conception. That is, the idea 
of bird brings to one mind fish, to another animal, to a 
third, owl. But we might use the same material in still a 
different way, finding out which associations are most 
common in the class and as soon as we have grouped the 
majority of the associations, we can make an examination 
in the case of each pupil as to what degree he participates 
in those average associations and how many of the associa- 
tions have his personal stamp upon them and were not 
shared by anyone else in the class. In this way we can 
measure the different degrees of originality of mind. But 
we might also group the associations as to their concrete- 
ness or abstractness, as to the prevalence of visual or acous- 
tical or tactual or motor elements, as to their emotional 
flavor and many other characteristics. We have spoken be- 
fore of the varieties of memory which are easily tested by 
the reproduction of nonsense syllables or of disconnected 
words. We might examine the differences between words 
which were heard and those which were seen, the fading 
away of the memory traces after various time intervals, 
the number of repetitions necessary for a correct repro- 
duction. 

220 



INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES 

A test which is of especial educational importance re- 
fers to that aspect of intelligence which characterizes the 
power of combination. We give to the child a page on 
which a story is typewritten in such a way that the spaces 
for certain letters in many words are left blank. In a given 
time the child is to fill out those blanks ; and the number of 
spaces filled and the intelligent quality of the work are 
examined. Many similar devices have been proposed. The 
groups of the mental processes of attention, discrimination, 
and suggestion offer themselves equally well to quick-testing 
studies. No material seems more adequate than the read- 
ing of a short story or, still simpler, the showing of a pic- 
ture with many details. How many objects have been at- 
tended to ? To what extent can we influence the report by 
suggestive questions ? How far does the report show deter- 
minateness and certainty in the statement ? What type of 
observation has been prevalent? The discrimination may 
be tested most easily by the arranging of weights of dif- 
ferent heaviness, or by dividing a distance between two 
points into halves, or by judging the differences of pitch of 
slightly varying tones. 

The fluctuation of the attention can be recorded, if 
the child indicates by a movement of his hand the appear- 
ance and disappearance of a faint visual impression or of 
the ticking of a watch. There our interests would belong 
especially to the relation between the periods of concen- 
trated attention and the periods of relaxation. Much em- 
phasis has also been put on the sensitiveness to pain, pro- 
duced, for instance, by a pressure against the temple. This 
was also one of the symptoms which have sometimes been 
proposed as characteristic of general intelligence. Chil- 
dren of excellent ability were said to be especially sensitive 
to pain. Such a clainl cannot be maintained, but the 

221 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

recognition of the differences certainly contributes to the 
general mental diagnosis. 

Exactly the same is true of the differences of reaction 
times. A short reaction time has sometimes been over- 
valued as an indication of strong mental ability. This 
seems untenable, but the differences in reaction time cer- 
tainly are important. Of course an exact measurement of 
the individual reaction time demands some complicated ap- 
paratus. In every case the idea is that an impression, a 
click, or a flash, or a touch, is given and the child must 
make the quickest possible movement of his hand in re- 
sponse to the stimulus. The time is about a fifth of a 
second and measurement of the differences demands subtle 
instruments which show at least hundredth parts of a sec- 
ond. If such exact measurements are taken, striking indi- 
vidual differences are indeed found. But the finer analysis 
shows that it is not only a question of quickness or slowness, 
but that the differences refer to different inner attitudes. 
The child who reacts slowly has turned his mind before- 
hand to the incoming impression; the other child who 
is more inclined to turn beforehand to the movement to 
be performed, has, on the whole, the shorter reaction time. 
It cannot be said that the one is better than the other, in- 
asmuch as the experiment demonstrates that the greater 
quickness is paid for by a poorer quality. The child who 
gives all his attention to the movement neglects the im- 
pression and therefore sometimes rushes into hasty reac- 
tions before the stimulus has come in. The child who 
reacts with full attention to the impression needs more 
time, but is always correct. Hence the one is no better 
than the other, but they are different types. The one is 
predisposed by nature to be objective and the other sub- 
jective, the one gives his attention to the world and the 

222 



INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES 

other to his own personality. They will become two dif- 
ferent kinds of beings in later life. 

The reaction time may be measured without such sub- 
tle instruments simply with the second hand of a watch, if 
not one individual but a whole group of children is to be 
measured. If the task is to compare the reaction time of 
fifty children of eight years with that of fifty children of 
twelve or fifteen years, or the reaction time of fifty boys 
with that of fifty girls, or the reaction time of fifty chil- 
dren who have had manual training with that of those 
who have had no manual training and so on, we can apply 
the so-called chain reaction. The children form a circle or 
a serpentine line, each holding the hand of his neighbor 
and we touch the left hand of the first. As soon as he 
feels the pressure he presses the hand of the next and so 
it goes on, each receiving a tactual impression in the left 
hand and reacting with the motor activity of the right. 
The last child reacts by lifting the hand. The time is 
measured for the whole class, and with fifty children, after 
a little training, it will take about ten to fifteen seconds. 
The differences of the groups will express themselves in 
the differences of time. This method is also suitable for 
the study of the fatigue of the children's minds. A class 
of fifty children may give the pressure from the first to the 
last in twelve seconds at the beginning of a recitation hour. 
If it was a fatiguing lesson, at the end of the hour the 
time may have become twenty seconds or more. But just 
in the case of fatigue, we need more than the measure- 
ment of the whole class. Few individual factors are so 
important as the variations with reference to the liability 
to fatigue. 

Whether the energies of a child are quickly exhausted 
or can be kept for a long while at full efficiency decides a 

223 



PSYCHOLOGY AXD THE TEACHER 

large part of his school work and later of his life work. 
In this respect it is most important that the mere inner 
feeling of tiredness is no reliable source of information. 
On the whole, of course, the tiredness indicates the ob- 
jective fatigue and its value for the mental hygiene is 
evident. A feeling of fatigue warns against misuse of and 
damage to the brain cells, just as a pain indicates a bodily 
injury which demands care. But this average experience 
shows individual variations in both directions. A feeling 
of fatigue may come up habitually after a very small de- 
gree of effort, long before any undesirable effect in the 
central nervous system is to be feared. Yielding to such an 
illusory feeling of fatigue would have a weakening effect on 
the whole personality. Such a child must learn to over- 
come the slight tiredness by new effort. On the other 
hand, there are not a few who often approach an injurious 
exhaustion without any subjective feeling of fatigue. A 
neurasthenic disturbance may indicate later that the safety 
line was passed without any inner danger signal. 

Thus it becomes very essential to examine the tendency 
of the child to fatigue by objective methods. A large num- 
ber of appropriate devices have been applied and the re- 
sults show a certain agreement. The most natural way 
is to study the mental effectiveness in various stages of fa- 
tigue. This effectiveness may be measured by the rapidity 
of the work and by its correctness. The children may be 
made to count the number of times the letter e occurs on 
a page. It may be found how many seconds are necessary 
to pick out the e's on the page and how many have been 
overlooked. The fatigued child will need a longer time 
and will do more defective work. Yet such a task is too 
little similar to the demand of the school work. This is 
more immediately approached, if the task is to perform a 

224: 



INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES 

series of arithmetical calculations within a given time. Or 
to come nearer to the intellectual functions, the experi- 
ment may demand an answer to certain simple logical 
problems, or to use a test which we mentioned before, the 
filling of letters and syllables in a typewritten story in 
which blanks have been left. 

Still more interest has been given in recent years to 
such tests as do not measure the fatigue of the mental 
state itself, but secondary effects of the brain exhaustion. 
For instance, it has been found that if we put two compass 
points — and a hairpin will do as well — on the back of the 
hand or on the forehead and measure the distance at which 
two points are felt as two, the result will vary with the de- 
gree of fatigue. On the back of the hand the two tactual 
impressions may be discriminated at a distance of perhaps 
fifteen millimeters when the child is at his best, while the 
same child after two hours of fatiguing work may feel at 
the same distance only one fusing impression, and the 
points now have to be separated by twenty-five or thirty 
millimeters. In a similar way the decrease of motor power 
may become a characteristic sign. The fresh child can 
exert a pressure which the tired child cannot secure. 
Among other features it may be noticed that the breathing 
becomes more superficial and the pulse weaker with in- 
creasing fatigue. 

But it is not only a question of greater or less tendency 
to fatigue, of slower or quicker exhaustion of the psycho- 
physical energies; experiments also demonstrate various 
rhythms and curves of fatigue for the whole day's work. 
There are some who are freshest in the morning, others 
who are freshest in the afternoon. And while exam- 
inations of whole classes hide these individual differences, a 
careful study shows that almost every individual has his 

225 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

own distribution of greatest efficiency and easiest fatigue. 
Some are at their best after a night's sleep and become 
tired during the day ; others rise in a still half-asleep state 
and through the small stimulations of the day they awake 
more and more until late in the day they are at their high- 
est power. The individual differences of fatigue demand 
very different distributions of effort in order to secure the 
fullest efficiency. In the best case all general rules only 
compromise between the needs of the different individuals, 
and these compromises can do little toward leveling the 
variations, as such fundamental types of fatigue tenden- 
cies seem to remain characteristic for individual nervous 
systems. 

To mention still a few more aspects under which the 
individual differences of the pupils may be and ought to 
be tested, it will be of high importance to study the ability 
for forming habits. The different extent to which various 
children profit by repeating newly acquired movements is 
striking. And likewise the firmness with which an ac- 
quired habit lasts in the psychophysical system shows many 
variations. The experiments may cover the ground from 
the simple throwing of a ball to the learning of telegraphy 
or typewriting. No less important is the tendency of the 
pupils to become distracted by external disturbances. We 
can measure simple attentive work in counting or copying 
or calculating with and without external disturbances, 
noises, or graphophone music. Or we may study the ra- 
pidity of adaptation to new lines of activity. One child 
goes easily from one thing to another, while many children 
can do good work only if they are kept in the same line for 
a while. 

We have not spoken as yet of the differences in feelings, 
emotional responses, and expressions of feelings. Groups 

226 



INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES 

of stimuli which produce strong pleasure or displeasure in 
some children may leave others neutral and indifferent. 
From simple colors and color combinations to beautiful 
paintings, from simple tones to artistic music, we may 
study individual differences of taste and enjo}Tnent and 
measure the intensity of the reaction by the effect on pulse 
or respiration or movements. In like manner we may 
study ethical responses with all the degrees of moral feel- 
ing; and the more we enter into subtle analysis of such 
subjective factors, the more we recognize the fundamental 
differences in the make-up of those boys and girls who 
face the teacher. And every new recognition must remind 
him of his threefold task. First he must regulate the 
class work in such a way that each of those various per- 
sonalities can respond and profit to a certain degree. That 
is, he must find a middle way which does not yield to one 
or the other mental constitution but offers a compromise. 
Secondly, he must develop the particular tendencies of the 
individual, which nature prepared, as far as they are valu- 
able. No gift and no strong point ought to be overlooked 
in the classroom. And thirdly, that which nature prepared 
must be supplemented. Just that which is weak needs 
strengthening and that which is lacking must be supplied. 
Yet all such prescriptions have their narrow limits. 
The work of the teacher can no longer be profitable to all 
the pupils, if the compromise has to be arranged with 
reference to boys and girls who fall far below the average 
children of their age. The psychological differences of the 
individuals must indeed lie within certain limits which de- 
mand serious attention. It is true that the lowest varie- 
ties of mental constitution, represented by the idiot and 
the imbecile who cannot learn the use of their mother 
tongue at all, will not appear in the schoolroom. The 

227 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

community must take care of these unfortunates for whom 
teaching in the ordinary sense of the word is not in ques- 
tion. But it is different with those feeble-minded and re- 
tarded children who represent the borderland region of 
normal development. In many respects they have the ap- 
pearance of normal children and only a small distance 
seems to separate them from the stupid, the naughty, or 
the lazy children whom every teacher has to find at the 
foot of his class. Yet careful observation cannot overlook 
the mental abnormity of certain pupils whose lack of men- 
tal power does not demand that they be grouped with the 
imbeciles. Their attention cannot adapt itself, their per- 
ception is defective, their memory is uncertain, their asso- 
ciations are slow and uniform, their judgment is helpless, 
their feelings are utterly unstable, their will is weak and 
suggestible, their instincts unusually impulsive and gen- 
erally their bodies show disabilities. 

Such children must be recognized as unfit for instruc- 
tion in the common schools. If their presence in the school- 
room is ignored, they themselves must from year to year 
have less chance of becoming useful members of the com- 
munity. They sink down through their inability to follow, 
become utterly discouraged, and do not profit at all from 
school. On the other hand, if the teacher does adjust the 
instruction to their inferior psychical make-up, the whole 
class is held back and must suffer unfairly. The only de- 
sirable solution is that they be taught in special classes in 
special schools, where they profit without disturbing others. 
It is the duty of the school and of the physicians to find 
out these defective children at an early stage. In our large 
cities thousands of them are still mixed with the normal 
school population. An insistent effort in such directions 
will also most easily discover those frequent cases in which 

228 



INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES 

the deficiency is, after all, not one of the psychophysical 
constitution, but is the result of disturbances in the sense 
organs or of bad nourishment or of absurd acquisition of 
habits. The inability to spell correctly may be connected 
with an inefficiency of the eyes, the inability to speak well 
may depend upon an inefficiency of the ears; and an early 
examination may show the way to bring back such a defi- 
cient child to normal school work. 

But the attention of the teacher and of the community 
belongs no less to those individual differences which char- 
acterize the " nervous " child. Diseases like St. Vitus's 
dance or epilepsy will be easily recognized. But the hys- 
teric varieties, abnormal irritability, and psychopathic emo- 
tionalism may too often be overlooked. There may be 
children with unusual talents, yet at the same time with 
unusual defects. A lack of self-discipline and self-control 
may exist which makes all educational effort in vain. 
There is an abnormally quick fatigue, the attention has 
no resistance and while the intelligence may be in some 
respects brilliant, the memory is undermined by autosug- 
gestion and the play of the imagination goes over into un- 
truthfulness. Too often the nervous child suffers from the 
inheritance of a pathological constitution and the inborn 
weakness can never be completely removed. But in almost 
every case a carefully adjusted education can save much 
which otherwise would be lost. The teacher ought never 
to play the role of the physician, but the school physician 
will never reach his highest efficiency unless he is helped 
by the teacher who has his eyes open for those individual 
variations of pupils which are due to diseases in the nerv- 
ous system. 

We might seek the differences of the pupils in the 
schoolroom in still another direction. We might ask 
16 229 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THEJ TEACHER 

about their mental equipment. There may be one child 
who has never seen green grass or a cow or a sunset, and 
another child who has traveled with his parents over the 
globe. One child may have been brought up in the slums, 
another in fashionable quarters. Moreover, we do not 
need the contrast of extremes. Even in the same sphere 
of external life the one child brought up in the father's 
library under the personal supervision of considerate par- 
ents, the other brought up in a nursery under silly care- 
takers may show no less contrast of psychical equipment. 
Careful statistical inquiries have frequently been made. 
The children who entered the school were examined as to 
the things which they had seen and heard and knew, and 
much valuable information was gained from that. But 
while all this goes on in the midst of the pupil's mind, it 
can hardly be called a trait of his mind as such. It is es- 
sentially a sociological problem to inquire what material 
has been gathered by a child before he enters the school. 
Certainly careful notice must be taken of it for the class- 
work. It would be absurd to presuppose in the instruc- 
tion acquaintance with ideas which have never before 
reached the child's mind. But the teacher's interest in this 
kind of differences among his pupils is not psychological 
b'ut pedagogical. 



EDUCATIONAL PART 
THE WORK OF THE SCHOOL 



CHAPTEE XXIII 

SCHOOL INSTRUCTION 

(5uR psychological survey has shown us the chief men- 
tal factors which influence the pupil's work and develop- 
ment. We selected them with pedagogical interest, ignor- 
ing those elements of the mind which are insignificant for 
the educational life. Yet we examined, analyzed, and ex- 
plained those mental states mostly without direct refer- 
ence to particular tasks in the schoolroom. It seems the 
most natural continuation of our study, if we finally ask 
how mental states are related to special fields of the 
school work or to special features of the school organiza- 
tion. For instance, what mental factors enter into play 
when the child is to read, or to write, or to draw, to make 
an arithmetical calculation or a French translation? 
Moreover, what mental factors determine the curriculum, 
with its selection of subjects, or the alternation between 
work and play and rest, between school work and home 
work? In short, we must ask at what point the under- 
standing of the pupil's mind becomes important for the 
actual life in the school. Therefore, we fijially enter the 
narrower sphere of education. 

As a matter of course, only a small fraction of the 
world of educational problems lies before us. The modern 
study of education embraces numberless interests. It leads 
far beyond the school, to the nursery and the kindergarten, 

233 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

to the educational influences of the home and the formative 
factors of the public life. Above all, it connects the school 
with the conditions and achievements of society. The 
school becomes a sociological problem, in which the eco- 
nomic, political, and social conditions are important. The 
administration and organization of the school, the tech- 
nic of instruction and of discipline, the problems of hy- 
giene and health, the relations of the school to higher insti- 
tutions of learning and to the callings of men and women, 
and many similar problems demand the attention of 
the student of pedagogy. For us the psychological point of 
view has determined the limits of our horizon. The group 
of the psychological problems of education demands the 
focusing of our interest. 

Yet, all the first part of the book demonstrated with 
serious argument that psychology can be only the tool of 
the educator. Psychology, out of its own resources, can 
never show what the aims of education ought to be. If we 
approach the application of psychology to some particular 
educational problems, we must have selected the special 
tasks beforehand on the basis of nonpsychological argu- 
ments. We learned how education selects these ends by 
ethical considerations. Our last part must, accordingly, be 
a combination of ethics and psychology. That means that 
we must go beyond the strictly psychological questions and 
must consider some general pedagogical problems, at least 
so far that we may understand the aims for which we want 
to apply psychology. In our first part we had only reached 
the point from which we recognized the general aim of 
education. From the standpoint which we had won there 
we must now point out how our general educational aim 
prescribes the particular ends of the school work. 

We recognized that the general aim of education was 

234 



SCHOOL INSTEUCTION 

this: the child is to be made able and willing to realize 
the ideal purposes, and thus to help in building up a world 
of eternal values. We saw that every other apparent aim 
of education is ultimately meaningless and contradictory. 
We saw that it is hopeless to deduce the ends of education 
from the mere personal interests and selfish desires of men, 
and we also convinced ourselves that only this aspect of 
education gives to the teacher's calling and mission its no- 
bleness, its inspiration, and its dignity. How far can the 
school bring the child nearer to this end ? 

It may be best to approach this complex problem in a 
theoretical way. We ask, first, what kinds of schemes and 
school work can make the child able and willing to realize 
ideal purposes. Of course, later we must examine how 
many of these theoretical possibilities can be realized in the 
curriculum of the school under the practical, given condi- 
tions. Our material is easily grouped. From the start we 
have separated the two aims of making the child able and 
of making him willing for the fulfillment of the ideal life 
task. We must emphasize the demarcation line. Many 
may be willing, but are not able, to realize their intention, 
but no less are there many able who lack the will. To be 
willing to enter into the upbuilding of ideal values de- 
mands a certain belief in them, an enthusiasm, a devotion 
— in short, a certain emotional attitude. To be able is no 
question of emotion, but a question of knowledge and train- 
ing. Indeed, the ability divides itself into those two dis- 
tinct spheres, the knowing and the doing. The acquisition 
of knowledge and the training of activity are equally 
needed, if education is to make the child able to help in 
the realization of ideal purposes. Whether practically the 
knowing and the doing can ultimately be separated is an- 
other question. Theoretically, it is one thing to know cer- 

235 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

tain facts and another to be trained in handling and 
changing them. Hence, we have from the start three large 
groups of educational aims. The child must acquire knowl- 
edge, he must be trained in activity, and he must be jBIled 
with enthusiasm. The first two make the child able for 
his task, the last makes him willing. 

Every one of these functions can refer to various as- 
pects of the world, as the experience of every human being 
has a threefold character. We know the things, we know 
our fellow men, and we know ourselves. This threefold 
division must be fundamental for the experience of the 
child, too. At whatever level the pupil may arrive, every- 
where he finds a world of things around him, which means 
nature to him; a world of men, which mean society, and, 
third, he finds himself. Each of these three worlds of ex- 
perience will become richer and richer. The things with 
which the infant deals are near his hand, and they grow 
and grow until, in the experience of the adult, they have 
been enlarged into the world of the astronomical universe. 
The fellow beings whom the child meets become imbedded 
into a larger and larger society until, in the experience of 
the adult, they have grown into the whole of mankind. 
Finally, the experiences which refer to the self are, in the 
infant mind, vague sensations, and they develop until they 
represent the whole richness of a moral personality. But 
on every level this threefold character of outer world, fel- 
low world, and inner world comes back again. Wlienever 
the child gains knowledge, or trains his activity, or feels 
moved by desires, it may refer to any of these three worlds. 
Thus, we come, first, to the knowledge of the outer world, 
fellow world, and inner world; secondly, to the activity in 
all three fields, and, finally, to the ideal demands for the 
things and the fellow men and the self. Yet every one of 

336 



SCHOOL INSTRUCTION' 

these groups suggests further subdivision. For instance, 
we can separate the material knowledge and the formal 
knowledge. Above all, when we come to our third large 
class, we shall have to subdivide the various emotional 
demands — the ethical, and the logical, and the sesthetic, 
and so on. Of course, it cannot be our task to carry out 
such a system of educational aims in its detailed ramifi- 
cations. 

What parts of the school curriculum satisfy these vari- 
ous groups of needs ? To be sure, we must not forget that 
the school work stands in no contrast to the foregoing home 
influence. It may be claimed that every one of these 
achievements is approached in a slight degree before the 
child enters the schoolroom, and in some directions the 
school simply has to continue what the nursery has pre- 
pared. In other directions the school itself can be only a 
beginning; the later life must bring the fulfillment, if ful- 
fillment is ever to come at all. 

We said that the first condition for the ability to realize 
ideal ends is knowledge of the world. We separate the 
knowledge of things from the knowledge of fellow men and 
the knowledge of the self ; and in each case we also want to 
separate the material knowledge from the formal. The 
material knowledge of things begins with the child's ac- 
quaintance with the surrounding objects and leads toward 
the fullest possible knowledge of the 23hysical universe. 
The study of animals and plants, of the physical structure 
of the earth, of the human organism, of the physical and 
chemical processes, thus enlarges without limit the ac- 
quaintance with that material world in which and on which 
man must realize his aims. Other factors must determine 
the necessary limitation, but by principle the whole field of 
botany, zoology, anthropology, geography and mineralogy, 

237 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

of astronomy, of physics and chemistry would ideally ful- 
fill this need for the material knowledge of things. 

At its side stands the formal knowledge. It does not 
give the child acquaintance with whole objects and proc- 
esses, but examines certain formal relations. The most 
important is the number relation, which the child ap- 
proaches in counting, and which is developed further in 
arithmetic. Another aspect is the formal relation which 
leads to geometry. Again, another important formal aspect 
is offered in the variety of colors, which leads to a special 
study of the outer things. On a higher level we still move 
entirely in this formal analysis of the world, if we ap- 
proach mathematical physics. The description of the 
physical processes deals with content of experience, but the 
explanation of the physical relations through mathematics 
is the highest development of the formal understanding of 
the universe. 

Our second department of knowledge is that of the fel- 
low man. Here he is not in question as a physical body. 
As such we find him in the anthropological and physiolog- 
ical study of things. No, the study of man as fellow-being 
refers to him, not as an object, but as a subject; his will 
and his ideas must be understood. And surely no one who 
is to serve in the upbuilding of a world of values can do his 
best in it if he does not understand his fellow men and the 
world of civilization, which they have created as expression 
of their will. The knowledge of man's culture is, there- 
fore, as indispensable as the knowledge of nature. Again, 
we separate the content and the formal aspect. The con- 
tent of this world of civilization is represented by the hu- 
man history. The political history stands out as an impor- 
tant part, but, after all, only as a part. The economic and 
cultural history, the history of science and of art, and lit- 

338 



SCHOOL INSTRUCTION 

erature, and religion must supplement the story of the 
growth and the struggles of the nations. Only through 
such historical perspective, whether it goes back one gen- 
eration, to the Civil War of America, or a hundred genera- 
tions to the wars of Assyria, do we understand in its 
fullest meaning the life which surrounds us, and only if we 
understand it can we serve it and fill it with our ideals. 

Man's life, too, oifers its formal aspect. Most funda- 
mental is the mutual relation of men by language. The 
child must be able to read the printed and the written 
word and to understand its meaning. This linguistic rela- 
tion is as important for the formal knowledge of man as 
the mathematical relation is for the formal knowledge of 
things. But, just as the number aspect was not the only 
formal side of things, we may discriminate in the fellow- 
world, too, many other systematic relations. Men stand in 
social and political, in legal and economic and moral rela- 
tions, and only he who understands this system of mutual 
connections understands the world in which he moves. 
Here, between the formal and the material aspect of men, 
we have a relation similar to that in the world of things. 
There we saw that the physical process can be considered 
from its material side in descriptive physics and from its 
formal side in mathematical physics. In like manner, the 
political, and legal, and economic, and social life which 
surrounds us can be considered in both ways, either with 
reference to its content or with reference to its form. In 
the one case we understand it historically, in the other sys- 
tematically. For instance, in one case we try to compre- 
hend the constitution of our country as a result of the his- 
torical development, in the other we try to understand it 
by accepting it as a given existing system, which we ana- 
lyze in its legal aspect. 

239 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

Our third field of knowledge is the self. If here again 
we discriminate, we find, first, the knowledge of ourself as 
a definite group of experiences, characterized primarily by 
our particular place in the world; and on the formal side 
the knowledge of our own powers, and talents, and gifts, 
and limitations. No knowledge of nature and culture can 
be substituted for this necessary knowledge of our own con- 
tent and of our own power. The child must know where 
he stands in this group and in this community, must know 
what experiences he personally has gained and what lies 
before him, and he must know as well what he is able to 
perform and with what special interests and gifts nature 
has provided him. The school has no right to neglect this 
aspect. The school should furnish the child with an ob- 
jective understanding of his own position, and everything 
must be kept in a definite relation to his ovm place and to 
his own neighborhood, not only in order to connect his 
studies with what he knows best, but, still more, to make 
him comprehend what he is himself. Throughout the 
school life the child must find himself more and more and 
recognize his own personality, if he is to become prepared 
to do his best in the upbuilding of an ideal world. 

We turn to the second large department of school work, 
which is no less necessary for making the child able to per- 
form his life task. He must become trained in the per- 
forming of the task. He must learn the particular activi- 
ties. Each learning of activity means training. Only we 
must never forget that our activity is not always an exter- 
nal one. We are active not only if we move our arms and 
legs and change the outer world, but also if we direct our 
attention or work with our inner will in order to change 
ideas or to overcome inner resistance. This internal doing 
certainly belongs in the same sphere with external doing. 

240 



SCHOOL INSTEUCTION 

It demands the same practice and training, and is sharply 
to be separated from any mere acquisition of knowledge. 
It would lead too far to enter into complex subdivisions, 
which a subtle classification of activity would demand. 
For our bird^s-eye view, it may be sufficient again to 
separate only those three large groups of activities re- 
lating to things, relating to fellow men, and relating to 
the self. 

Indeed, the child must learn to act on the things of the 
outer world; but we must insist that a searching activity 
has just as much importance as a changing activity. By 
searching we mean those efforts by which the existing 
things are discovered and explored, while they themselves 
remain unchanged. The changing activities, on the other 
hand, produce real alterations in the objects themselves. 
To the first group belongs all training in observation and 
recording, in experimenting and analyzing — yes, we might 
say all training in solid, thorough methods of study. Then 
this group also includes all measuring or careful drawing; 
it includes, with reference to the past, the training in care- 
ful remembering and reproduction of the outer impres- 
sions; with reference to the future, all training in exact 
expectation and determination. Hence, we must place 
here the training in mathematical calculation. Whether 
we observe, or record, or measure, or calculate, we are al- 
ways active, in order to find out what exists, or what has 
existed, or what will exist, and what in itself is inde- 
pendent of our doing. On the other hand, we have those 
numberless activities which really change the outer world. 
The sewing and cooking and weaving find their place here, 
as well as the manual training work of the boy, up to com- 
plex technical work and industrial training. Certain as- 
pects of physical and chemical and biological experiment- 

241 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

ing, drawing and modeling must be included in the same 
class. 

Our next group would then naturally be the training in 
activities which refer to the fellow men. The art of speak- 
ing and writing stands in the foreground. But from its 
elementary aspects, with the demands for spelling and 
grammar, it may lead up to composition, and rhetoric, and 
debating, and all other productive activities by which man 
influences man. The same group contains the training in 
manners and social behavior, in ect)nomic transactions and 
in civic life. All these have their special technic, which 
must be learned, and the school must have its share in the 
training for social behavior, for good manners and polite- 
ness and respect, as well as for spelling and writing. All 
these activities toward other men are of a common type: 
they try to influence, and in this way to change the fellow 
men, to alter their attitudes toward the world or toward 
the actor. In a way they correspond to those activities in 
which the things are changed. But we separated from 
them those other activities in which the things were ex- 
plored. Correspondingly, we can find those activities in 
which the other men are not changed, but understood. In 
the center stands the act of reading. We read to become 
acquainted with the experiences of fellow men and, ulti- 
mately, of all mankind. 

The last group of activities again refers to the child's 
own self. The child must learn to change himself. Gym- 
nastics, with its development of physical energy and skill 
and strength, is one aspect, but still more important is the 
inner gymnastics of will, and feeling, and attention, and 
thought. The child must learn how to control his own 
emotions, how to inhibit his own ideas, how to turn his in- 
terests, and how to awake his associated ideas. Proficiency 

242 



SCHOOL INSTEUCTION 

in any one of these arts will prepare him better for his life 
tasks, and in every one of them training is needed. 
Finally, the child must also learn to find out what is in his 
own mind, to draw the conclusions of his thoughts, and to 
consider all the motives which his knowledge and experi- 
ence has deposited in his mind. With such changing and 
searching activity toward outer world, fellow men, and in- 
ner world, the work which is to make the child able for his 
ideal achievement is completed. But there still remains 
before us that last great part of the school work which 
makes the child not only able, but at the same time willing 
to do his share. In the school curriculum all which serves 
to make the child able to do his later work may be classed 
together as the instruction; all which makes the child 
willing for the work may be grouped under the term in- 
spiration. Thus, the instruction comprises the acquisition 
of knowledge, as well as the training of activity. Now we 
must turn to the means of inspiration. 



CHAPTEE XXIV 

SCHOOL INSPIRATION" 

'We should always keep in mind the end of all school 
education. The pupil is not only to become able, but also 
to become willing, to fulfill the ideal aims of life. There 
is no need that the school make him willing to aim toward 
selfish ends. The desire for pleasure and the dislike of 
pain are always with him and are always working as mo- 
tives in his daily life. But the ideal aims which, as such, 
do not appeal to mere feelings of pleasure and pain and 
which do not promise selfish gratification cannot become 
imj)ulses and motives for the child's effort, if an enthusi- 
asm and a belief in them and a willingness to work for 
them are not impressed on the young soul. They may be 
coupled with pleasure, but their real meaning lies in a sat- 
isfaction which is independent of personal desires, inas- 
much as they are valuable and must be valuable for every 
one to whom life is more than a dream and a chaos. They 
give meaning and significance to the world, and we submit 
to them because they are eternally valuable. But the child 
must learn to appreciate them and must be inspired to find 
his true satisfaction in the approach toward their realiza- 
tion. We may emphasize the chief groups, and in every 
group may separate the reference to the things, to men, 
and to the self. We may be short, as we had approached 

244 



SCHOOL INSPIRATION 

this field once before when we discussed in our ethical part 
the general aims of life. 

We may begin with the purely intellectual ideal of con- 
sistency or connectedness. It is the connectedness of the 
experiences of the outer world which gives us natural sci- 
ence, the connectedness of the world of human beings which 
gives us history, and the connectedness of the thoughts in 
ourselves which gives us the life of reason. If all the facts 
concerning the outer world are connected in a scientific 
system of causes and effects, if all the human intentions are 
interrelated in the world's history of mankind, and if all 
the thoughts are logically connected by the laws of consist- 
ency, nothing in our possible experience remains isolated 
and accidental. Then a world is reached which must have 
validity for every thinking person. What a difference be- 
tween the mere seeking of information for personal advan- 
tage and the search for ideal truth in the service of ideal 
consistency ! To seek information which we can apply and 
which helps us is a longing for which no special enthusi- 
asm has to be taught, but to strive for truth in order to 
get a connected view of the world and mankind and inner 
life demands a slow development of a desire which is 
dependent upon school and education. However im- 
portant the acquisition of knowledge in the school is, 
the enthusiasm for knowledge is in itself not given 
with it; and yet it is the more important gift of the 
schoolroom. 

We point to an entirely different side if we emphasize 
the desire for harmony. In the world of things we may 
secure harmony by seeking and conserving and respecting 
the beauty of nature wherever it offers itself, or by arrang- 
ing our surrounding, our town, our home, our room, our 
desk, in such a way that every part agrees with every 
17 245 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

other, that forms, and material, and colors, and purpose, 
and meaning of the things are fitting for each other. No 
child needs to learn that sweet berries taste agreeably and, 
therefore, that they are to be liked. But the love for the 
harmony of nature and for the ideal fitness of things must 
be acquired by education. It is not simply a taste for a 
richer pleasure. What is to be learned is an enthusiasm 
for something which is valuable in itself. The child must 
learn to believe in the absolute value of the beautiful. The 
same demand repeats itself with reference to the fellow 
beings. Their harmony is friendship and love and peace, 
and again all that is needed is submissive belief in the 
eternal value. The child must learn enthusiasm for the 
ideal of the harmony of men. Discord and struggle may 
stimulate and attract his mind in its selfish seeking for 
pleasure. It needs an impersonal devotion to human unity 
in order to subordinate the life to the ideal accord of 
souls. Finally, the same holds true for the inner 
world. We saw in our ethical discussion that such a com- 
plete inner harmony of all our striving is that which we 
ought to call true happiness. Happiness, therefore, stands 
far superior to the mere pleasure as gratification of selfish 
desire. To seek pleasure no one needs especial inspiration, 
but to seek true happiness is the ideal goal for which en- 
thusiasm must be inspired. 

In closest relation to this ideal of harmony in the outer 
world, in the human beings, and in the self there evidently 
stands the ideal of perfection which finds its complete real- 
ization in art. Because of its endless connections, reality 
can never be completely perfect in itself; whatever we 
grasp in real life awakes demands for something else. The 
work of art alone can detach a given manifold from the re- 
mainder of the world, can by a frame separate the land- 

246 



SCHOOL INSPIEATION 

scape on the canvas from everything which lies outside, can 
isolate the persons on the stage or in the novel so abso- 
lutely that no tie links them with the rest of mankind. 
This complete perfection, in which every demand in the 
work of art is satisfied by its own means, is not a mere 
pleasant entertainment, not an enjoyment for one person 
or another, but a value to which the mind ought to be 
raised. The belief in the absolute dignity of such true art 
must be instilled by education. As far as this ideal is real- 
ized in the world of things, we have the fine arts ; as far as 
mankind and man's will is the material, we have liter- 
ature; as far as the inner life comes to such perfect ex- 
pression, we have lyrics and music. No education can live 
up to its true ends unless it helps throughout to stimulate 
the enthusiasm for artistic beauty. Whether poems or 
dramas are read, whether the masterpieces of foreign liter- 
ature are brought near to the pupil, whether artistic draw- 
ing or singing are studied or the glory of historical art is 
proclaimed, the enthusiasm for the realm of beautiful art 
must be developed, together with the belief in truth and 
harmony. 

We turn in an entirely new direction if we recognize 
the ideal nature of progress. We rejected beforehand the 
illusion that progress in itself is bound up with individual 
pleasure. In every field standstill and regress may secure 
just as much pleasure for the individual. The low life, 
the cheap life, the vulgar life, the barbaric life is no less 
full of pleasure and does not bring more pain. The gratifi- 
cation of our selfish desires does not demand progress ; and 
yet the educated soul longs for the realization of no ideal 
with deeper enthusiasm and stronger willingness to make 
sacrifices. We demand progress because it is absolutely 
valuable that the energies of this world be developed to 

247 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

higher and higher activity and that every germ come to 
harvest. 

In the sphere of the external things the ideal of progress 
is realized by technical development. Work which opens 
the land and wins the treasures of the globe and distrib- 
utes them in the channels of commerce, which plants the 
fields and transforms by manufacture the physical and 
chemical materials leads nature to higher and higher lev- 
els. In the sphere of fellow men the progress means social 
and political reform, means the awaking of new economic 
needs, means richer and richer organization of mankind. 
Finally, with reference to the self, the ideal of progress is 
realized in higher and higher development of the energies 
of mind and body, in the preparation for the fullest possi- 
ble service for which the talents of man have fitted him, in 
the unyielding production and creation of the best and 
highest work which our efforts can secure. Eewards and 
advantages may stimulate the selfish instincts which helpj: 
to spur the lazy will; and yet the goal will never be 
reached unless a certain enthusiasm and belief in the value 
of progress and self-development has become the funda- 
mental motive. A great man has said that enthusiasm is 
the best fruit which we gain from the study of history, but 
surely the pupil's study of history is only one of the many 
factors which must cooperate in filling the young mind 
with enthusiasm for progress, and reform, and industrial 
growth, and self-development, and the highest possible 
service to mankind. 

The belief in progress demands as its counterpart the 
belief in conservation and loyalty. A world in which every- 
thing flows by would be no world. If we are to realize that 
which has ideal value, we must aim toward the conserva- 
tion of that which is valuable in itself. It ought to perse- 

348 



I 



SCHOOL IN-SPIRATIOK 

vere and to maintain itself. In the world of nature, it is 
the valuable organic world, is life itself, which demands 
this conservation. The belief in the absolute value of 
life involves the care for health and the hygienic effort 
for the organism of the social body. If we turn to the 
social world, this self-conservation and loyalty mean law. 
If we apply it to the self, it is morality. In our eth- 
ical discussion we have sufficiently convinced ourselves that 
morality is ultimately self-consistency of the will; we are 
moral if we act in accordance with our own deepest will. 
Wherever disease destroys life, wherever lawlessness de- 
stroys the legal self -conservation, wherever immorality de- 
stroys the ethical will, there an ideal value is annihilated. 
The child must be educated toward the enthusiastic belief 
in the absolute value of this ideal loyalty. 

Finally, we speak of the highest, all-embracing value if 
we turn to the demand for unity. Religion and philosophy 
realize for the human soul this highest desire, in which 
truth, and happiness, and morality, and progress, and 
beauty are blending and in which all contradictions and 
struggles are removed. As far as the world of things is 
concerned, the religion of the Church understands the uni- 
verse as God's creation, and the philosopher understands it 
as the realization of an absolute spirit. As far as man- 
kind is concerned, religion seeks the expansion of the 
Church to imbed human life in religious beliefs, and phi- 
losophy seeks the community of ideals in every human 
being. Finally, as far as the inner life is concerned, re- 
ligion seeks salvation, and philosophy an idealistic view of 
reality. Both work together harmoniously, but both pre- 
suppose that devoted belief and enthusiasm which has 
nothing to do with selfish hopes. 

'No public school of this country is called to teach re- 

249 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

ligion, and hardly any school reaches the level at which 
philosophy could be taught with profit. And yet there is 
no school and no teacher who can afford to teach without 
implanting in the 3^oung souls a religious and philosophi- 
cal longing. A certain attitude toward the totality of life 
and world is necessary for everyone. However narrow and 
humble a man's life may be, even his routine work must be 
controlled by a certain belief and general view of the 
world. Otherwise, his duties would have no meaning for 
him, his own fate would appear absurd; he would not rely 
on the laws of nature, and would not know whether the 
sun would shine again on the morrow. To develop suQh a 
really unified view of the world, or rather a striving for 
such a unified view, should be the silent, but most solemn 
aim of the school work. A spirit of reverence and a spirit 
of idealism must pervade every schoolroom and must fill 
the pupil's mind with an enthusiasm for a life of meaning 
and significance in which the day's work is imbedded into 
the eternal. 

Thus, the ideals of consistency and harmony, of per- 
fection and progress, of loyalty and unity, must be instilled 
into the pupil's mind, if he is to be made willing to fulfill 
his life's work and to make use of his knowledge and of his 
training. However rich the instruction may be, this work 
of inspiration gives character and direction to it. There is 
no knowledge and no training which may not be misused, 
and no one can be called truly educated simply because he 
has acquired the ability to j^erform his task. True educa- 
tion demands the devoted belief in the value of the task and 
the enthusiastic willingness to subordinate the personal 
gratification. Not every one can be inspired with equal 
strength by every one of the human ideals. There are in- 
dividual differences as well as national ones. There is no 

250 



SCHOOL INSPIRATION 

doubt, for instance, that the ideal of perfection and of con- 
sistency does not take hold of the average American man 
as deeply as the ideal of progress and morality and re- 
ligion. In the same social group one man may be carried 
away by the enthusiasm for social reform, another with 
that for industrial development, one with delight in liter- 
ature, and another with devotion to natural sciences; one 
may be enthusiastic over harmony among men, another 
over the relation of men and God; one may live in the joy 
of his faithful labor, another in his family duties ; and yet 
every one of the human ideals ought to exert some power 
over every educated being. However much we may be ab- 
sorbed by our labor, by efforts for service and work and 
progress, we can never afford to be entirely indifferent to 
the harmony or disharmony of the life about us, to the 
beauty or ugliness of our surroundings, or to the connect- 
edness or distortion of our thought. 

The means by which the school may serve such a pur- 
pose are abundant, and yet characteristically different from 
those which aim toward the imparting of knowledge. En- 
thusiasm cannot be taught by hammering it into the mind. 
Mere memory exercises will never be the source of inspira- 
tion. It may be that the best of this work has to be ac- 
complished indirectly, almost by suggestion. The teacher 
who treats knowledge as if it were a mere matter of in- 
formation, helpful toward getting better bread and butter, 
and who trifles with the respect for truth as such, destroys 
the real core of his instruction. The enthusiasm of the 
teacher for thorough knowledge, or for the beauty of a 
poem, or for the unselfishness of a moral hero may be an 
inexhaustible well for the best which the pupil can learn in 
his classroom. We insisted that there is no need of in- 
struction in religion in order to give to the whole instruc- 

^51 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

tion religious significance. In the same way, it may not be 
necessary to teach civics in order to fill the 3^oung mind 
with belief in civic duty and enthusiasm for civic progress 
and righteousness. There may not even be any need of 
special instruction in art and beauty, if purity and beauty 
of speech, if order and harmoniousness of the schoolroom 
constantly touch the receptive mind. But the direct means 
of education must not on this account be neglected. The 
ethical values of social and historical life, the aesthetic 
values of literature and art, the logical values of consistent 
thinking and natural laws must be consciously impressed 
on the pupils in order to bend their minds toward enthusi- 
astic conviction. 



CHAPTEE XXV 



THE SCHOOL CURRICULUM 



We have tried to sketch and to develop consistently 
from one principle the whole manifoldness of educational 
efforts. No possible task of education is left undone, if the 
pupil has achieved complete knowledge of outer world, fel- 
low man, and self, has been perfectly trained to act with 
reference to them, and has been inspired with enthusiasm 
to realize the human ideals in outer world, fellow world, 
and inner world. But to say this, means, of course, to 
confess that no perfect education is possible. Even under 
the most satisfactory conditions, not one of these aims can 
be reached, even, in any single field. Can we ever hope to 
impart to the pupil complete knowledge of nature, or 
mathematics, or languages? There is no scholar in the 
world whose knowledge is perfect in the smallest field; no 
thinker knows all the consequences of his thought, and, in 
the same way, no sane man fancies that any activity can be 
trained to perfection in the school. 'No power of attention 
and observation can reach a point beyond which progress 
would be impossible, no master of language can write a 
style which could not be surpassed, no industrial ability is 
perfect; finally, the striving for ideal ends cannot itself be 
more than an ideal for which the school is striving, cannot 
ever be completely reached. 

Hence, it would be absurd to imagine that a school cur- 

253 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

riculum could ever be planned which would offer every- 
thing which such a theoretical map of possible educational 
work contains. If the school life should go on until three- 
score years and ten were reached, it could remain only an 
effort to approach the ideal, and no human mind could ad- 
just itself to a perfect system of education. Moreover, 
nothing would be gained by such completeness, inasmuch 
as the opportunities for the realization of ideals for every 
human being are limited by the particular conditions un- 
der which he lives. Of our knowledge, of our inspiration, 
and of our training alike, it remains true that only a small 
part of the possible material and means are of central im- 
portance, and that from this center everything shades off 
to indifferent regions in which little can be serviceable for 
the individual task. How few of us would be able to serve 
any valuable end by mastering the Persian language or 
Chinese history ! Selection is the fundamental principle 
which must control the making of a school plan. Further- 
more, we do not consider as the task of the school the whole 
of the individual preparation, but only that part which lies 
below a certain point of vocational training or of higher 
studies. The college and the university and the teclinical 
institutions are not schools in the ordinary sense of the 
word. Accordingly, the selection must eliminate much 
from the school that should be left to later periods. Thus, 
we stand before the question: From what point of view 
should the elementary and the high school select for their 
curriculum that which is most desirable in the abundance 
of possible offerings? 

The most essential principle for this sifting process is 
a negative one : the limitations of the pupil's mind. This 
at once leads us back to the midst of psychology. These 
psychological limitations are twofold: they refer to the 

2H 



THE SCHOOL CURRICULUM 

quantity and to the quality. The quantity of work which 
any man may perform is narrowly limited, but the possi- 
bilities of the child are certainly still smaller. No disci- 
pline and no outer stimulus can bring a change beyond 
certain limits. To be sure, the well-educated, carefully in- 
formed, and trained boy and girl can do incomparably 
more than the neglected child. The powers of observation 
and of attention, of memory and of interest can be stimu- 
lated to a degree which allows a rapid increase in the 
amount of work done in a given time. Yet nature pro- 
vides the mind with well-working safety valves. As soon 
as a certain limit is passed, attention fails, the will suc- 
cumbs, and every additional effort is fruitless. Moreover, 
every overburdening interferes with the value of the 
work. If more is demanded than the child's mind can ful- 
fill, the result is carelessness and superficiality. Then the 
poor result discourages the pupil and the discouragement 
inhibits all mental powers; thus a vicious circle is estab- 
lished. Surely, a wise limitation of the quantity of work 
is fundamental for the success of the school. 

In another way this reduction of the amount of work 
is determined by the period of the available time. The 
ps3^chological factor must yield to the sociological ones 
there. The child's mind might well stand an enlargement 
of the curriculum to extend over more years. The mental 
constitution does not offer any reason why every child 
should not go on through the high school, but social con- 
ditions make it impossible. The school must be adjusted 
to the situation of those families who cannot afford to sup- 
port the child beyond the graded school, and who need the 
earning power of boy or girl when the elementary school 
course has been completed. Some of the years in which 
the mind is most open to new learning and training are 

255 



PSYCHOLOGY AXD THE TEACHER 

thus lost for educational purposes to the overwhelming 
majority of the children of the nation. The school has to 
accept these conditions and to make the best of them. 

But this limitation of time for social reasons must act 
as a stimulus on the school to plan its curriculum and the 
whole school administration with the aim of the strictest 
economy of time, avoiding all waste, and thus securing the 
greatest possible amount of educational work in the few 
years which are at the disposal of the school influence. 
Nobody can doubt that in this respect the traditions of a 
careless past still hamper too much even the best efforts of 
our modern institutions. The point at which our high 
schools begin their work might easily be reached by the 
average child two years earlier than, on the whole, it is 
reached to-day. Any careful comparison of the American 
school achievements with those of the European Continent 
shows convincingly that the end of the high school career 
which is reached by an average boy or girl of eighteen in 
this country can easily be reached by the school methods 
abroad at fifteen or sixteen years. 

No one can overlook that certain differences between 
those European and American schools result from social 
and political conditions which cannot and ought not to 
be changed. It lies in the structure of European society 
that those who probably will go to higher schools are 
brought together from the start in special elementary 
schools which work more directly toward the higher aim. 
The democratic spirit of this country cannot admit such 
differentiation in the elementary grades of the public 
schools, and that necessarily introduces a retarding ele- 
ment into the studies of the best pupils, while it has the 
noble advantage of giving equal chances to every boy and 
girl of the country. Yet the slow progress in the private 

256 



THE SCHOOL CURRICULUM 

schools indicates that the fundamental reason lies, after all, 
in the methods, in the habits of work, in the lack of disci- 
pline, in the unwillingness to force concentrated attention, 
in the unequal preparation of the teachers, and most of 
all, perhaps, in the ill-adjusted plan of instruction. Time 
is wasted by dreary repetitions, and too often by poor or- 
ganization, by short school days and short school years, 
and, alas! by the almost immoral lack of support which 
the American school frequently finds in the American 
home. 

As far as the quality of the material is determined by 
the limitations of the pupil's mind, we must think, in the 
first place, of the fact that nothing can be fruitful in edu- 
cation which cannot be comprehended. The child is not 
expected to comprehend the truth which is offered in all its 
consequences or the thing presented in all its connec- 
tions, but some kind of productive, apperceptional com- 
prehension is essential. That presupposes, on the one side, 
that nothing is taken up which has not been prepared for by 
the foregoing instruction, and, on the other side, it de- 
mands that nothing shall be introduced which surpasses the 
capacities of the mind at the given period of development. 
When we studied the psychological functions, we recog- 
nized how the mind progresses through its inner conditions 
of growth. A most careful adjustment of the material to 
the immature powers of apperception is necessary. It de- 
mands more tact on the part of the teachers and the writ- 
ers of school books than is often found. It involves an 
energetic sifting of the educational content. The teacher 
too easily forgets that the picture which he shows to the 
pupil may appear to the child as something entirely differ- 
ent from what he himself sees in it. Many a sentence and 
verse learned by heart may be spoken by the lips of the 

257 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

child, and yet remain beyond his comprehension. Both his 
life experiences and his mental capacities are insufficient 
for the mastery of the content. 

We have put the negative factor of the child's mental 
limitations into the foreground. We must turn to the posi- 
tive conditions, which ought to determine the plan of the 
curriculum. Which of all those possible studies within the 
limits of the pupil's capacity ought to be selected in the 
service of knowledge, training, and inspiration? First, we 
emphasize that on which we have already touched : the re- 
lation to the practical life work of the individual. No vo- 
cational preparation is in question. The future lawyer in 
the elementary school ought not to go through a training 
different from the future physician or minister. The mill 
laborer or the miner in the lower grades does not need 
knowledge different from that of the future farmer. How 
far individual liking and disposition may influence the 
school curriculum from the start we may discuss later, but 
certainly the demands of the future calling ought not to 
shape the early school activity. The essentials of our life 
and its demands are common to all of us, and it is more 
important that we all become prepared for the community 
of our national civilization by having a common stock of 
knowledge and training and enthusiasm than that the dif- 
ferences of our vocational life should shade our elementary 
studies. 

Yet, in certain respects, the great differences of later 
development are so evident that an early adjustment seems 
natural. It seems needless that the boys learn sewing and 
cooking or the girls carpentry. Again, it certainly is im- 
portant that differences be acknowledged for those who 
have to close their education at the end of the grammar 
school and those who can carry it on through the high 

258 



THE SCHOOL CUREICULUM 

school, and, correspondingly, between those who enter from 
the high school into vocational life and those who pass on 
into the years of collegiate education. Yet all these differ- 
ences of the later life work are slight and almost insignifi- 
cant, compared with those demands of the life task which 
are common to all children of our country and our genera- 
tion. If we consider these demands our idealistic theory 
of education may almost speak in the usual language of 
the utilitarian educational theory. Indeed, that is the or- 
dinary view which we hear expressed on the streets, that 
the children ought not to be burdened with anything which 
will not prove useful in their later activities. The Ameri- 
can elementary school of the twentieth century must not 
train in the speaking of Sanscrit, nor teach the detailed 
history of Russia, nor the subtler geography of Africa, not 
because it is harder to learn Sanscrit than French, Rus- 
sian history than English, African geography than Ameri- 
can, but because such studies taken from remote regions 
would be useless, or, as we should prefer to say, would not 
be serviceable for the realization of ideals in the life of 
American citizens. 

There may still remain much disagreement as to what 
subject matter ought to be favored under this point of view 
of usefulness and what may be neglected in the American 
school, not because it is bad or in itself not important, but 
because it is less related to the life of the American school 
child. The problem is the more complex for us, as we have 
seen that certainly the acquisition of knowledge and the 
training in activity are not the only things which are *^ use- 
ful." Everything which stimulates the ideal enthusiasm, 
if it is a kind of enthusiasm and inspiration which can 
have a chance for later expression under our life conditions, 
is of no less practical usefulness. Of course, there has 

259 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHEE 

never been any disagreement about the proposition that 
mastery of the mother tongue, that reading and writing, 
spelling and grammar and composition, that arithmetic 
and some nature study, some history and geography, some 
literature and art, some manual training and physical ex- 
ercises are indispensable in a modern elementary school. 
Even physiology and hygiene seem to have won their per- 
manent place. The list of those things which no one would 
omit becomes still longer if we extend our view over the 
high school course, with its foreign modern languages and 
its classical languages, with its classical history and its 
mathematics. 

The disagreement begins rather when the question 
arises how much in every case may be admitted into the 
compass of the school — how much of nature study, of his- 
tory, of geography, and, moreover, with what degree of 
thoroughness they are to be treated. The development of 
the last two or three decades has shown an evident tend- 
ency to seek progress in an increase of the number of 
topics. But there is no lack of indications which suggest 
that a turn in the road is near. Instead of expansion, the 
best educational leaders begin to work toward concentra- 
tion. They see that a few thoroughly treated subjects are, 
after all, more valuable than a large number of topics 
superficially touched. They forego the light and little use- 
ful acquaintance with many scattered fields and prefer the 
solid training which results from earnest devotion to a few 
fundamental departments. Yet, in the best case, there will 
have to be a compromise. Any theoretical ideal solution is 
impossible. It must remain a practical adjustment which 
is determined by the abundance of needs of the individual 
for his fullest life work and the narrowness of the avail- 
able time. The chief hope of the educational reformer, 

260 



THE SCHOOL CUERICIJLUM 

after all, must lie in the improvement of the methods of 
teaching, in the seriousness of the support of the teacher 
by the community, and in the better preparation of the 
teacher. Without extending the time, the work may be- 
come more thorough and yet cover the whole manifoldness 
of subjects which are usual to-day. 

A mere enumeration of desirable subject matter would 
be insufficient for constructing and building up the plan of 
the school curriculum. Still other factors must determine 
the structure of the work. In the first place, we must aim 
toward economy of studies. So far we have considered the 
negative influence of the limitations of the mind and the 
positive influence of the demand for usefulness and adjust- 
ment to the personal need for later life work. We now de- 
mand an economy of studies by which the maximum of de- 
sirable studies is brought to the child with a minimum of 
material. We must strive toward a correlation of studies by 
which each part of the work serves the largest possible man- 
ifoldness of purposes. The inquiry into the usefulness of 
the topics is essentially a sociological problem, but this 
consideration of the mutual relation of studies and their 
economy is primarily a psychological one, just as is the 
question of the limitation of studies by the limitation of 
the child's mind. 

If we consider the abundance of desirable ends of in- 
struction through knowledge and training and inspiration 
with reference to outer world, fellow men, and self, mate- 
rial studies and formal studies, we must be sure that only 
a most careful interrelation of work can do justice to the 
whole of it. But such mutual relations offer themselves 
quite naturally from the start. For instance, the child 
learns the language, speaking and writing, in order to be 
trained in this necessary activity for intercourse with his 
18 261 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

fellow men. But this reading activity is, very naturally, 
a means to become acquainted with literature, and thus to 
receive that inspiration and enthusiasm for literary art 
which belongs to an entirely different group of school in- 
terests. At the same time those sentences which he reads 
contain material which may be important as information. 
They may give knowledge regarding history, or geography, 
or nature study, or social facts. In short, the study of 
reading may serve in the same lesson the training in lan- 
guage, the extension of knowledge, and the inspiration for 
beauty. Any nature study may impart scientific informa- 
tion, may at the same time train the power of attention, 
and of description, and of observation, and, finally, may in 
the same act fill the mind with enthusiasm for scientific 
truth and for the order of the universe. 

Our psychological survey has brought us nearer to the 
insight into a correlation which is still more fundamental. 
The analysis of the school aims shows to us that knowl- 
edge must be achieved and that activity must be trained. 
Psychology has taught us that the one can never go on with- 
out the other. We have recognized that it is a mistake to 
deal with the sensory functions as if they were really cut 
off from the motor processes. We recognized the unity of 
that brain are which leads from impression to expression. 
We saw that we apperceive only that toward which we are 
responding, and that every action of ours works backward 
on our ideas. We saw that every judgment, with its af- 
firmation or negation, means the opening or closing of 
channels of motor discharge, and that the mutual suppres- 
sion of our actions is at the bottom of the mutual inhibi- 
tion of our ideas. The whole correlation of studies must 
be based on these principles. There is no safer acquiring 
of knowledge than the acquiring through self-activity. We 

262 



THE SCHOOL CUERICULUM 

learn the words by speaking them, the number relations by 
using them. Our attitudes and actions must be trained in 
order to give stability to our thoughts. Our active atten- 
tion must be developed in order to discriminate our im- 
pressions. We must learn to imitate by inner and outer 
action in order to open our mind to the world which comes 
to our senses. We must open the paths of discharge in 
order to make the ideas vivid. We must learn to sup- 
press our actions in order to regulate the flow of thought. 
In manual training the boy may learn clearness of ideas, in 
skillful turning of the attention he may develop the re- 
sources of his knowledge, in training accuracy of his read- 
ing and writing and calculation, he may train the cor- 
rectness of his intellect. 

But we may go further. Besides knowledge and train- 
ing we recognized that third large group of school aims, 
enthusiasm and inspiration. We can now say that just 
as knowledge and activity belong inseparably together in 
the human mind, psychological ties connect activity and in- 
spiration no less. It is that intimate psychological relation 
between will and emotion which makes it necessary that 
every new enthusiasm shall give strength and impulse to 
the activity and really make the training profitable. No 
learning and no training of the human mind counts, if it 
does not find an emotional willingness. The richer the 
inspiration, the deeper the self-development. Accordingly 
the school should secure a curriculum in which the formal 
training and the formal knowledge are acquired as far as 
possible on important subject matter and where enthusi- 
asm and inspiration, too, are gained as far as possible with 
material which is in itself valuable as source of useful 
information and as opportunity for training. Intellect, 
emotion, and will must, therefore, be respected in their in- 

263 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

terrelation, if a real economy of studies is to be reached. 
Every new advance of modern psychology certainly em- 
phasizes this intimate interrelation. 

We have spoken of the correlation of studies. It is no 
less important to emphasize the harmony of the mental 
functions which are to be strengthened by the curriculum. 
No school ought to train one side of mental life at the ex- 
pense of the others. We saw that training of mental activ- 
ity must be acknowledged as a function of the school cer- 
tainly equivalent to the mere acquisition of knowledge and 
the development of inspiration. Moreover, our psychologi- 
cal study showed clearly to us that every mental function 
can really be developed. Apperception and observation, 
memory and imagination, attention and interest, imitation 
and reasoning, feeling and emotion, effort and will, in fact, 
every function can be rapidly strengthened through sys- 
tematic training and can degenerate through neglect. One 
side of mental life must not be crippled in the interest of 
others, as long as general education is in question. If at 
a much higher level scholarly research trains functions of 
intellect at the expense of the aesthetic emotion or the 
study of music reenforces aesthetic faculties with accom- 
panying neglect of formal reasoning, we have left the prob- 
lems of the school behind us. General education appeals 
to the whole mind and seeks in the interest of educational 
economy to secure the largest possible variety of mental 
training with the smallest possible amount of material. 

It cannot be denied that to a certain degree the prin- 
ciple of the economy of studies and the principle of the 
completeness of mental development stand in a kind of 
antagonism. The first principle would demand that knowl- 
edge and training should be acquired always on studies for 
which there is liking and enthusiasm. The second must 

264 



THE SCHOOL CURRICULUM 

lead us to the conviction that the school cannot develop all 
the important functions of the mind, unless the pupil is 
also trained in the mastery of work which does not ap- 
peal to his liking and which may, on the contrary, appear 
to him as drudgery rather than as a source of inspiration. 
A study which is throughout emotionally welcome and nat- 
urally interesting may indeed be serviceable for the quick 
acquisition of a large amount of material but it neglects the 
development of that mental function which is most essen- 
tial for a life of high aim, the voluntary attention. There 
is no doubt that through the tendency of our time to yield 
to this demand for interesting instruction, we already feel 
the dangerous results of the crippling of the voluntary at- 
tention. The superficiality which makes so much of the 
work of our day inefficient has its origin here. 

The school which works for thoroughness, and that 
means for the training of an attention devoted to that 
which does not appeal to immediate interest, serves the 
highest interests of the future. Thorouglmess does not 
mean mastery in the sense of covering every possible com- 
bination, but it does mean that whatever is done must be 
done as well as the pupil possibly can do it. Thoroughness 
does not linger over every possible detail ; it may very well 
accompany a skill in eliminating the unimportant, but 
nothing ought to be omitted simply because it does not 
appeal to the involuntary attention. If this power of con- 
trolling and forcing attention is to be trained at all, the 
school must insist on material which may be important and 
valuable, but which is not at first interesting. The child 
must learn that great human art of providing interest out 
of his own resources for that which does not appeal to the 
involuntary attention. The school must adjust the practi- 
cal work to the two contradictory demands and ought to 

265 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

avoid extremes in both directions. A rigid school which 
by means of discipline and appeals to moral emotions forces 
the attention steadily on material which is disliked would 
destroy most important functions of the human soul no 
less than the comfortable go-as-you-please school which 
never requests attention except for that which appeals to 
natural liking and interest from the start. It is a most 
urgent problem to find the right middle way. 

We have left out of our consideration one factor which 
nowadays too often pushes itself into the foreground. 
There is a wide-spread belief that the personal inclinations 
and talents of the individual child ought to play an im- 
portant role in the shaping of the curriculum. The very 
small amount of truth which might be acknowledged in 
this demand has certainly been exaggerated in recent times 
and threatens to become dangerous to the best interests of 
the community. It is primarily the counterpart of the 
claim that the instruction should always appeal to immedi- 
ate attention. We have discussed this claim and rejected 
it. It must be conceded that if instruction is always to be 
entertaining and interesting, it must be different for the 
different individuals. There is no topic which may not 
appear uninteresting and dull to some boys or girls however 
fascinating to others, if we abstract from that which ap- 
peals immediately to the senses or which by its appeal to 
humor or curiosity may find favor with all. One boy likes 
physical experiments, another likes to read a poem; the 
latter may find physics boresome and the former does not 
care at all for poetry. If voluntary attention and drudg- 
ery is to be removed from the class room, the adjustment 
to the personal tastes seems unavoidable. But as soon as 
we have recognized that just this effort of attention de- 
mands training in preparation for the service of life, the 

266 



THE SCHOOL CUERICULUM 

situation is entirely changed. The adult knows that there 
is no calling and no ideal life work in which a large 
part does not demand the voluntary submission of atten- 
tion. The variety of personal inclinations offers the most 
natural opportunity for training this important power. 
As long as the school work is uniform for all, each one 
will come in contact with certain aspects of important and 
valuable subject-matter which is foreign to his natural 
tastes and which leads him on to that discipline of atten- 
tion which is the most important condition for energetic, 
successful, happy life. 

To be sure, much of this convenient demand has still 
other sources. The school too easily becomes influenced by 
methods which are correct in days before school and still 
more by methods which are necessary after school. In the 
days before school, the self-development of the child will 
most easily be directed by developing his higher energy out 
of his natural play. Such play, of course, shows all the 
traits of the little personality and while external stimula- 
tions for play which grown-up people bring to the child are 
mostly conventional, traditional, and uniform, the child 
is welcome to select his play and the means of it in accord- 
ance with his particular nature. The kindergarten, on the 
whole, will still follow the maxim that the child may be 
left to his immediate attention most of the time, although 
even there wise management will begin serious training of 
voluntary attention. But if to a certain degree the merrier 
method is permissible, these kindergarten schemes cer- 
tainly should not overrun the school. 

Our present tendencies, however, indicate that the 
chief influence comes from above. It is the university 
which has shaped the college, and the college has influ- 
enced at first the high school and slowly even the primary 

267 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

school. The university with its professional institutions 
must offer entirely different work to different men and 
women. The physician, the teacher, the lawyer, the minis- 
ter, the engineer, the banker, demand widely varied prepa- 
ration for their callings. There are not a few who are 
convinced that this professional work ought to start after 
graduation from college ; they think the best interest of the 
community suggests that even the college course should 
not be much influenced by this later parting of the ways. 
They believe that the professional activity will be the bet- 
ter, the broader the general education. They would pre- 
fer to see the college in this sense saved as a place for the 
highest cultural education. Yet with the introduction of 
free elective courses into the modern college, the tempta- 
tion has become too great, the pressure of the professions 
is too strong, and the result is that a large majority of col- 
lege students adjust the college work to the later vocation. 
The physician takes natural science in college, the lawyer 
government, economics, and history; and just this process 
has now worked downward until even the high school has 
become for many a place for specific preparation for the 
later work. 

As far as that is an encroachment on the school topics 
which serve general broad education, it may be a doubtful 
gain. And yet a certain fitness cannot be denied to such 
a principle. The enthusiasm for serviceableness in the 
particular line which a boy or girl has chosen for life may 
give to a specialized study in the high school a certain jus- 
tification. The high school pupils ought to have different 
preparation, if they can go on to college or if they enter 
into commercial life. For all these reasons it is wise that 
the secondary education should offer a certain choice of 
courses, perhaps a so-called classical course and English 

268 



THE SCHOOL CUERICULUM 

course and commercial course. But this becomes unwise 
if the motive for choice is not the professional end which 
has been chosen, but the personal liking for the studies 
themselves. To begin the specialized training at an early 
educational stage may be and, to a certain degree is, a so- 
ciological necessity, but to allow the young pupil to choose 
his studies in accordance with mere liking and disliking is 
an educational wrong. These young interests are shifting 
and the fullest possible contact with all sides of culture will 
give the best opportunity to the pupil slowly to find him- 
self and to develop permanent interests. 

The haphazard method of following the impulses of lik-" 
ing interferes with the sound inner growth. Accidental 
conditions like imitation, fads, and fashions, personal pref- 
erence for a teacher, if not even for a special recitation 
hour, elements of superficial attraction in the subject-mat- 
ter and similar chance factors too often determine the 
choice, even at the collegiate stage. At an earlier period 
the chances for misleading impulses are still greater. And 
yet it is the principle itself which is the most objectionable 
feature. The element of the pupil's personal taste as a 
controlling factor must be subversive to the true interests 
of the school. It ought to be a happy time which the child 
passes in the schoolroom, and to which he looks back with 
gratitude. But the great word which is to control it is not 
pleasure but duty. At some time in life, everybody must 
learn that no one can only follow his liking. Those to 
whom the community gives no chance to learn this lesson 
in the plastic years of school will have to learn it by dis- 
appointment and dissatisfaction at a later age. He who 
learned in the discipline of the school the eternal truth that 
the fulfillment of duty is the best thing which makes life 
worth living will be most grateful for his curriculum. 

269 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

Sueh a demand for uniformity of cultural school work 
without shallow concessions to the individual inclination 
in no way excludes the full play of individuality in the 
school life of the pupils. Even the most rigid school plan 
gives to everyone rich opportunity to show and to develop 
and to enjoy his particular gifts and talents, and each con- 
scientious teacher will take care that every germ comes to 
development and growth. And again it is a different 
problem whether those varieties of talent and intelligence 
suggest the forming of special groups and classes for the 
pupils who move forward more rapidly than the average. 
Every educator knows, on the other hand, the importance 
of eliminating those pupils whose mental capacities stand 
far below the average. It is in their own interest and in 
the interest of the whole class that they be taught with 
special methods in special classes. But these are technical 
questions of school administration which are secondary 
compared with that life question of the unity of the na- 
tional education. 



CHAPTER XXVI 



THE ELEMENTARY STUDIES 



To* enter into the detailed psychology of the special 
parts of the school curriculum would lie beyond the aims 
of our discussion. Moreover, it cannot be denied that a 
real scientific psychological study of the factors involved 
in the teaching of the special topics is still essentially a 
hope for future work. The purposive aspects of the teach- 
ing of history or physics or French have been worked out 
carefully, and much valuable material derived from practi- 
cal experience has been brought together. But the labora- 
tory work with its psychological experiments has hardly 
begun to enter this realm, and even physiological psychol- 
ogy confines itself to rather clumsy schemes which have 
not as yet been elaborated for the details of the various 
studies. Yet it can easily be foreseen that the new life 
which has come to experimental, educational psychology in 
the last decade and of which our psychological review has 
discussed not a few results, will transform many of the 
traditional theories. Even now a full mastery of the gen- 
eral psychological principles can help every teacher to 
make the special instruction more effective and satisfac- 
tory and to fertilize many arid regions. 

The fields in which really careful experimenting has 
been carried out are especially those of reading and writ- 
ing, to^a certain degree, those of calculating, drawing, and 

271 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

singing. We might add to this list manual training and 
gymnastics. So far the higher studies have hardly been 
touched, but the process which went on in general experi- 
mental psychology will repeat itself in pedagogical psychol- 
ogy. We saw that the psychological laboratory began with 
simple sensations and reactions and that a steady series of 
conquests led to experiments on memory, attention, emo- 
tions, and so on. The educational psychological experi- 
ment still stands at its beginning where the pedagogical 
elements, such as learning, imitating, attending, writing, 
fatigue, and so on, occupy all the energies of the laboratory. 
It seems still too bold an expectation to suppose that com- 
plex factors like those which determine a translation or 
a composition or a physical experiment or a literary appre- 
ciation should be studied by experimental methods. Yet 
here, too, the conquest will be made in time. 

To turn with psychological interest to at least a few of 
the most important school studies, we may begin with 
speaking, reading, and writing. Of course a child who 
comes under the teacher's care is able to speak. He does 
not wait until his school days to learn it. And yet we 
know that in a higher sense the majority of children come 
to a school age without any mastery of speech and must use 
their school time to acquire real power in the mother 
tongue, if they are ever to reach at least correctness, if not 
perfection. The learning of speech is a continuous proc- 
ess from infancy to the end of adolescence and each stage 
has its characteristic significance, however much the 
rhythm may differ in which various individuals pass from 
one level to another. The infant begins by imitating 
spoken words without understanding them, then under- 
standing follows, and imitation and apperception are com- 
bined in the beginning of real speaking about at the end 

272 



THE ELEMENTAEY STUDIES 

of the first year of life. But the words do not designate 
objective knowledge; they are expressions of feelings and 
wishes. It is the emotional and volitional aspect of the 
things which first comes to expression. Slowly this leads 
to objective naming and spontaneous designation of the 
things, a development which goes parallel to that of atten- 
tion and which carries with it the beginnings of memory. 

The control of the words leads further to abstract ideas 
which have no real logical meaning at first, but only the 
psychological character of a vague using of the same word 
for many similar things. From here the child reaches out 
for those words to which no immediate perceptions corre- 
spond. The imperfect mastery of the speech muscles and 
the lack of discrimination in the hearing of the spoken 
sounds for a long time leaves the language not only primi- 
tive but incorrect. Now the use of the verb and of the 
form of the question set in. The pronouns, the adverbs, 
the conjugation of the verbs are to be conquered, and 
finally the words take their conceptional character and with 
them the child grasps the logical relations themselves. At 
this stage we reach the organized completed sentences in 
which conjunctions play their role. It depends upon the 
natural intelligence of the individual what degree of devel- 
opment this ability of forming sentences has attained be- 
tween the third and sixth year. But whatever stage may 
have been reached, the pronounciation is seldom perfect, 
the grammar is always imperfect, the vocabulary is small, 
the style is awkward. Heading and writing and composi- 
tion will do their share to overcome the deficiencies and to 
train the child in a freer control. 

But the school usually puts too little emphasis on the 
training which belongs to the speaking as such. Teachers 
ignore the fact that speech, the most complex of all human 

273 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

actions, follows the general law that no action can be per- 
formed well on certain occasions, if it is habitually per- 
formed badly. No one learns to master speech, if he is usu- 
ally the slave of slang and deformed speech. The children 
cannot learn good English if they are allowed to give their 
answers in any lesson in a slipshod way and unless practi- 
cally every recitation is systematically used to train a clear, 
correct, grammatical expression in well-organized sentences. 
Throughout the years of development too many pupils 
speak mostly in sentences which grammatically hang in the 
air and use phraseology of colorless words without any dis- 
tinction. Among one another they speak a slang which is 
one of the most evil influences on the inner growth of the 
American youth. 

We have convinced ourselves that the organization of 
thought cannot be separated from the organization of ac- 
tion. The thoughtless, careless use of silly words which 
are the fashion of the hour in which our school boys and 
girls are accustomed to indulge means psychologically a 
uniform reaction in quite different situations. In decent 
speech a discriminating expression would be sought; in 
slang speech the lack of discrimination is hidden by the 
amusement which the mere deviation from the correct 
speech provides. The barbaric form becomes an attractive 
cover for a mental laziness which works back on the whole 
intellectual life. The natural consequence is a habitual 
lack of careful discrimination between similar conceptions 
and thoughts and the final result must be a lack of logical 
consistency and discriminating insight in the life of the 
community. It is needless to say that the teacher's Eng- 
lish must by its correctness and its suitability be the con- 
stant model. We have examined the meaning of imitation 
and suggestion. There is no doubt that the personality of 

274 



THE ELEMENTARY STUDIES 

the teacher is a center of suggestive influence throughout 
school life. That means that a motor setting exists in the 
child's brain by which the speaking of the teacher has a 
stronger chance to be imitated than any other spoken word 
which reaches the ear of the child. 

In recent times psychologists have correctly emphasized 
that the mere imitation of the sounds which are heard is 
not the only mental source of the speech reactions. The 
child does not perceive only by the ear his own speech and 
the speech of others but sees their speech movements and 
feels the tactual and muscular sensations of his own articu- 
lation. The influence of these visual elements comes out 
clearly in the fact that blind children have greater difficul- 
ties in learning to speak and learn more slowly. The child 
reads the word from the mouth of the speaker. Those in- 
ternal sensations connected with the speech movements as 
such have been often proposed as starting points for special 
physical exercises. The child is to imitate certain posi- 
tions of the tongue, of the lips, of the whole mouth cavity, 
and certain ways of breathing in order to produce the cor- 
rect pronunciation. All this connects itself most readily 
with the learning to read. 

The very elaborate work which the psychological labor- 
atory has in recent years devoted to the study of reading 
referred only partly to the learning and to the progress of 
the child. Its chief aim was rather the analysis of those 
processes which enter into the normal reading of the adult ; 
and yet these results were indirectly of educational value, 
as a clear insight into the mechanism of reading is evi- 
dently the safest preparation for the solving of the peda- 
gogical problems. Of course our purpose is that the child 
shall learn to read as an adult reads. Only if we know 
exactly of what elements this final process is constituted, 

275 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

can we decide what way toward the goal is the shortest. 
And we should not forget that the shortest way is not al- 
ways the safest and that to learn the art of reading quickly 
is not in every respect the best method. Here the experi- 
ment can easily go into the minutest details and the popu- 
lar ideas have had to be completely revised in many re- 
spects. 

To indicate the subtlety of the method, we may point 
to the movements of the eyes during reading. The usual 
idea was that the eyes pass in a continuous and steady 
movement from one end of the line to the other. The ex- 
perimental psychologist attaches a minute lever to the eye- 
ball and automatically registers on the revolving drum of 
the kymograph the movements which the eyeball really per- 
forms during the act of reading. Or by another method 
he takes kinematographic pictures of the reading eye, after 
attaching to the eyeball a luminous spot which can be ex- 
actly followed in the series of successive photographs. Both 
methods show that we never in ordinary reading move the 
eye steadily from one end of the line to the other but that 
our eyes make jerking movements, jumping perhaps four 
or five times in one line from one resting point to another 
and never really moving to the ends of the line. Thus we 
do not really read with a moving but with a resting eye. 
A whole complex of words is grasped by one act. The more 
trained the reader, the fewer are the points in the line at 
which he rests. !N"ot seldom such a point may lie between 
two words. This unexpected result stands in striking con- 
trast to the method of the child who begins to read and 
who is really obliged to move slowly along the line from 
beginning to end. Just for this reason it indicates the 
direction which the training should take, if the ability of 
the trained adult is to be reached. 

276 



THE ELEMENTARY STUDIES 

To mention another group of important experiments 
the time measurement of the recognition of words in read- 
ing has been carried out by means of the chronoscope 
which shows the thousandths parts of a second. Such ex- 
periments have demonstrated that, for instance, the read- 
ing of a word of three letters does not take more time than 
the recognition of a single letter. This evidently proves 
that the trained reader does not read the word by summing 
up the reading of the single letters. We apperceive the 
word as a unity. But the experiment even shows that a 
short sentence is also recognized as such an optical whole. 
Words which give no connected meaning demand a much 
longer time for reading than words which we apperceive 
as the united expression of a thought. Other experiments 
which move in similar directions have analyzed the condi- 
tion under which trained readers may read erroneously. 
For instance, we offer familiar words in flashlight illumi- 
nation and study how far it is possible to suggest a mis- 
reading. It is found that if a sentence is spoken before- 
hand which suggested a similar word, the substitution is 
frequently performed, especially when the letters to be ex- 
changed are not at the beginning of the word. This dem- 
onstrates that normal reading is to no small degree depend- 
ent upon the expected ideas. This is one of the most im- 
portant causes for the mistakes in the reading of the child. 
The smaller the training, the greater the chances that 
the expected idea will get control over the psycho-motor 
process of the reader, because the transition from the opti- 
cal impression to the speech impulse is not sufficiently ha- 
bitual to resist the influence of the anticipated idea. Such 
illustrations may be sufficient to show how the laboratory 
is able to approach these practical problems. 

Yet it would be an exaggerated hope to believe that 
19 277 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

pedagogical problems have found a definite solution as 
soon as they are brought to the exact terms of the experi- 
ment. The conflict of opinions as to desirable methods may 
still continue, in accordance with the emphasis which we 
are inclined to lay on the one or the other side. To point 
to the beginnings of the reading lesson, no modern psychol- 
ogist will doubt that the alphabet method is untenable. 
The old-time learning in which each letter had its own 
name and the word appeared to the child as composed of 
the sounds by which he named the letters was antagonistic 
to any rapid training, but to-day this is practically obsolete. 
Two other methods may be equally in harmony with the 
psychological results. We saw that the adult reader sees 
the word as a whole. Hence it appears reasonable to de- 
mand that the child, too, shall learn to read by grasping 
the picture of the printed or written word as a whole. The 
reading would then begin with cat or dog and not with a 
" c '^ or a ^^ d '' and only by comparing dog with dot and 
cat with hat does the understanding of the elements in the 
word become developed. But on the other hand, the psy- 
chological experiment demonstrates that the correctness of 
reading is the more perfect, the more single letters really 
control the apperception of the whole word. Much may 
therefore be said in favor of a method which by a combi- 
nation of simple sounds teaches the reading of the word by 
starting from the single letters. The complex motor im- 
pulse to pronounce the whole word in seeing the whole 
group of letters would in this case be slowly learned by 
combining the simpler impulses. This is certainly the 
method by which we learn most of the other complicated 
responses of actions, like playing the piano or handling a 
machine. To a certain degree, the methods can be used 
together. 

278 



THE ELEMENTARY STUDIES 

As the form of the letters and correspondingly of the 
whole printed or written word is, of course, an artificial 
sign which in itself has no similarity to the object which it 
designates, psychologists nowadays often demand that the 
word be written or printed inside a real picture of the 
thing. Still others wish to reform the learning of reading 
by printing the letters together with pictures of the mouth 
cavity, presenting the different positions of tongue and 
lips needed for the pronunciation of the sound. In any 
case the psychological analysis has awakened more than 
ever before the consciousness of the great complexity of the 
reading process and no teacher any longer has the right to 
ignore the results. Even the pathological observations of 
the many cases of inability to read have become highly 
instructive. 

In the same way the happy days of ignorance concern- 
ing the mental processes of writing are gone and experi- 
mental studies and clinical observations have thrown light 
on the extreme complexity of the task. To be sure, this 
disentangling of the partial processes quickly shows to what 
a high degree the mental and physiological acts in reading 
and in writing overlap. The psychological study of both 
processes therefore reenforces the conviction that they 
ought to be developed together. Moreover, the elaborate 
experiments of recent years indicate that the principle of 
progress in both cases is essentially the same. We said 
that the adult person has learned to produce the speech 
movement for a whole word by one motor Impulse while 
the untrained reader must give his attention and will to 
practically every single letter. It may be said that this 
difference also controls the contrast between the writing of 
the beginner and of the trained writer. 

It find its neatest expression through the subtle labora- 

279 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

tory studies concerning the changing amount of pressure 
which the writing pen produces on the paper. If the paper 
is lying on a sensitive apparatus which registers on a re- 
volving drum the exact distribution of pressure at every 
movement, we can get a curve which indicates the increase 
and decrease of pressure impulse for every movement. If 
an adult man writes a page, the typical result is that each 
word has one maximum pressure. It has a mountainlike 
appearance which indicates that the whole impulse of writ- 
ing the word is a unity. "With the untrained writer almost 
every single letter represents a little hilltop of its own. 
Thus the aim of the training is clear. The child must 
learn to bind the series of impulses together into one. 
That demands that the writing acts for the single letters 
become automatic and that the idea of the meaning of the 
word become able to realize the impulse for the totality of 
those subordinated automatic acts. This ought to be a 
warning against those progressive methods which start 
with whole written words. True progress will be the 
safer the more the complex innervation can rely on com- 
plete automatism for its parts. The words must be built 
up from the letters and the letters from the single lines 
and curves and loops, the crotches and links and hooks 
and bars and dots. 

By such training the child learns to write more quickly, 
to write without following by special eye movements along 
every single line and to become more and more independ- 
ent of the model which is to be copied. The result is that 
the handwriting gets the more individual character the 
more trained the writer. It would lead us too far to enter 
into the many problems of writing which the experimental 
work of recent years has analyzed. Of course the situation 
here, too, remains one in which the exact results are in 

280 



THE eleme:n'tary studies 

themselves not decisive for the choice of methods. We can 
iind experimentally that certain schemes of teaching pro- 
duce certain effects on the writing. The speed or the grace 
or the ease or the legibility or the uniformity of handwrit- 
ing or the bodily comfort of the writer or the mental devel- 
opment of the writer's attention and correctness might be 
furthered, but it remains a different question to decide 
which of these ends is the most desirable or which combi- 
nation of them is preferable. Even the fight between the 
friends of vertical, semivertical, and sloping styles of writ- 
ing cannot be settled by physiological psychology until the 
preference for certain ends is determined. 

The writing problem is hardly to be separated from 
that of spelling. Here, too, the experimenters have been 
eagerly at work. The fundamental problem is in what way 
the mind best grasps the elements of a word. If we start 
from those simpler cases in which the sound corresponds 
with the sight, it cannot be difficult to examine by exact 
tests under what conditions the structure of a word is most 
correctly reproduced. Experiments have been carried on 
in this way. A series of artificial nonsense words are seen 
while the tongue is held immovable between the teeth, or 
seen and at the same time internally spoken, or seen and 
spoken aloud, or seen and written in the air, or seen and 
written on paper, or heard and spoken, or heard and writ- 
ten, or seen and heard, or heard and spelled, or heard and 
articulated and so on. Every time it was observed how 
many mistakes and how many transpositions of letters re- 
sulted when the children reproduced them later. The in- 
dividual differences of visual, acoustical and motor types 
certainly play a role in the performance, but the general 
result demonstrates a considerable advantage for that 
method which allows seeing and at the same time motor 

281 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

response by speaking or writing. The mere movement 
sensations which are usually held responsible for this suc- 
cess are probably less important than the effect which the 
movement as such has on the vividness and clearness of 
the sensory impression. If the channels of motor discharge 
are open the incoming impressions gain a distinctness 
which they cannot reach if the action is blocked. 

The case becomes more complex when sound and sight 
do not correspond. A comparison of visual and acoustical 
methods is then obviously impossible, but the advantage of 
training by action remains the same. Of course the Eng- 
lish language brings this discrepancy between the seeing 
and hearing to an extreme and the teachers are easily in- 
clined to consider the difficulty in the spelling of Eng- 
lish as a chief cause for the slowness in the progress of the 
school children. It is the typical excuse for the slow pace 
at which American children advance in school compared 
with those of the European continent, that years have to 
be wasted by learning the intricacies of English orthog- 
raphy. The excuse at once appears untenable, if we con- 
sider that, for instance, every German school child must 
learn not one but two ways of reading and writing, the 
English and the Gothic, and, moreover, an orthography 
which is hardly less distant from phonetic spelling. But, 
above all, the scare over the irregular historical spelling is 
to a high degree unjustified. The teachers are too easily 
inclined to overlook the important psychological fact that 
phonetic spelling removes most of the means and helps to 
a ready grasping of the sentence. If we had an ideal pho- 
netic spelling, the child would have to make a much greater 
intellectual effort in the simplest reading. Those odd and 
queer ways of spelling are landmarks which help the 
recognition and apperception of the words in every line. 

282 



THE ELEMENTARY STUDIES 

To simplify the spelling completely would mean to make 
reading very difficult. If to and two and too were writ- 
ten alike the spelling teacher would save less than the 
English teacher would lose. The child would progress still 
more slowly. The more differences exist, the smaller is the 
effort for the intellectual grasp. 

Finally, we may turn to arithmetic. There is no dis- 
agreement about the fact that the mastery of the number 
relations is an essential condition for order and economy 
and practical success in our social life. It is at the same 
time the most immediate way to accurate and exact think- 
ing and training of attention and memory. If this wider 
aspect of arithmetic is considered, it seems regrettable that 
there must be serious doubts as to the efficiency of the 
American school in this field. Throughout the land the 
people in practical life are slow, clumsy, and inaccurate 
whenever simple mental calculations are needed. The av- 
erage clerk may secure the right result by written work, but 
his oral arithmetic shows all the signs of careless and slip- 
shod methods. This lamentable situation suggests most 
strongly that the school does not enter sufficiently into 
the psychology of the process and is satisfied with results 
which do not last. Considering that superficiality is the 
fundamental national vice, mental arithmetic ought to be- 
come the means of training the youth and every step ought 
to be guided by careful psychology. The help from this 
can be the more reliable, since here, too, experimental work 
has taken hold of the problems. 

Arithmetical calculation is an activity in which profi- 
ciency must be gained by training. The aim of the act is 
to find quickly an unknown figure from others which we 
know. To make that possible we must master the system 
of figures and must have at our disposal certain simple 

283 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

equations like those of the multiplication table and the 
corresponding elementary results of addition, subtraction, 
and division. The development of the consciousness of 
number is a slow and a late one in the child's mind. The 
child may learn the mere words of the numbers early, but 
a real consciousness of the relations which go beyond four 
or five is hardly developed before school age. Thus it 
arises much later than, for instance, the space appercep- 
tions. It is well knovm tliat the primitive peoples fre- 
quently cannot count beyond three. 

The development of the first clear ideas of the number 
relations has been a most fertile problem of psychological 
discussion. The one party puts all the emphasis on the 
counting, the other on the visual perception of simulta- 
neous impressions. The counting method relies on succes- 
sive steps; its psychological advantages are naturally 
strongest for the individuals of acoustical type of imagery. 
The material which is used lies before the mind in the 
forms of time and one step is taken after another, adding 
one to another. The form of the other method is essen- 
tially not that of time but of space. The child is to com- 
pare three little balls with two, and four with three. The 
larger figures then demand a grouping into smaller units, 
and through careful combinations of groups even large 
numbers of objects, up to thirty or forty, can be apper- 
ceived as unities without counting. Careful experiments 
have determined the best adjusted grouping for quick ap- 
perception and the conditions under which the balls or 
points or lines are grouped with the least fatigue. We 
know what intervals in space are most desirable, we 
know the important effect which the movements of 
the eyes have in the interpretation of such groups, how 
movements of the hands are helpful and how simple 

284 



THE ELEMENTAEY STUDIES 

operations can become mechanical on the basis of such 
visual demonstration. 

It is important that we have to acknowledge individual 
differences, also, with respect to the general attitude toward 
small groups. Some naturally start with the apperception 
of the whole and turn from that to the parts, while others 
build up the whole from the smaller groups and the ele- 
ments which they perceive first. Those who start from 
the whole are inclined to overestimate the number, and the 
others are inclined to underestimate it. From these sim- 
plest problems a psychological doctrine of arithmetical 
instruction can lead, step by step, to the more complex 
procedures. The time measurement in thousandths of a sec- 
ond is an interesting method in this field. It shows differ- 
ences as to rapidity between arithmetical operations which 
appear quite equal to the ordinary self-observation and 
through such a recognition of hidden differences we re- 
ceive suggestions as to the ways in which a better training 
ought to proceed. As a most elementary illustration, we 
may mention the considerable time difference between even 
the simplest subtraction and addition processes and corre- 
spondingly, between the simplest multiplication and divi- 
sion. There is no need of such retardation in the sub- 
tracting act, and the experiment demonstrates that it de- 
pends only upon the fundamental lack of training in 
reversing the order of figures. If the children began to 
count backward as well as forward, this difference would 
disappear. Of course the whole richness of the psycho- 
logical process is open before us only when we pass the 
limits of elementary arithmetic and enter the field of 
mathematics. 



CHAPTER XXVII 



THE HIGHER STUDIES 



All the psychological functions which our survey has 
shown to us are active when the pupil enters into the realm 
of the higher studies. Whether natural sciences or math- 
ematics, English literature or foreign languages, modern 
languages or classical antiquity, geography or civics, draw- 
ing or manual training are taught, the teacher must adjust 
the work to the whole mental personality and must con- 
sider the apperception and attention, memory and imag- 
ination, emotion and will alike. To enter into the discus- 
sion of detail cannot be the task of this volume, which 
must be confined to the principles. Moreover, as we said 
before, the experiment has not as yet conquered the spe- 
cific problems of these more complex applications. A 
short outlook over the field must be sufficient: a careful 
study of this wide region must be left to a later volume on 
psychological didactics. 

In our system of instruction the knowledge concerning 
the surrounding nature was the first important depart- 
ment which we discussed. Yet from a didactic point of 
view, we cannot possibly confine its importance to the ac- 
quisition of knowledge. The formal training which nature 
study offers, the training in observation and attention, in 
remembering and thinking, in discriminating and reason- 
ing, in efficiency and orderliness, is certainly no less valu- 

28Q 



THE HIGHER STUDIES 

able. And finally it does not contribute less than any other 
study to the emotional inspiration which we demanded as 
an intrinsic part of school education. He would be a poor 
teacher of botany and zoology who did not fill the hearts 
of the young folk with love for the beauty of nature, with 
delight in flower and tree, pond and forest, in bird and 
beast. And again no one teaches the study of nature in 
the true spirit who does not bring near to the child the 
ethical meaning of nature's eternal laws which demand 
submission of the human will and widen and ennoble the 
human heart. 

It is an utterly narrow idea to think that the study of 
nature is only utilitarian, and that its influence on the 
view of the world must be a materialistic one. Indeed, 
there is a widespread confusion which suggests that it is 
materialistic to give our interest to the material things of 
nature as against the world of ideas which give us idealistic 
content. The truth is that the study of material things 
can be a source of idealistic inspiration just as the study of 
ideal things can easily lead to materialistic views. Every- 
thing depends upon the attitude of teacher and pupil. It 
may be materialism to study nature only from the point 
of view of practical usefulness, but the nature study which 
really belongs in the school, which fills the young mind with 
awe for the laws of the universe and with joy for the rich- 
ness of nature and with absorbing interest in the develop- 
ment and mutual relations of things, truly brings educa- 
tion and culture and makes a better human being. And 
yet it would be a narrowness to underestimate the con- 
tribution to practical knowledge. A certain amount of 
positive acquaintance with the stubborn facts of the nature 
in which we have to live our life, which gives us the ma- 
terial for the realizing of our duties and which forms the 

287 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

background for our activity is indispensable. There is no 
need of giving to it any vocational aspect. Everything 
which has a partisan aspect is certainly quite antagonistic 
to the true seeking spirit of natural science. It is, there- 
fore, a pity that much of the habitual physiology instruc- 
tion dealing with the alleged influences of alcohol too often 
is a perversion of true natural science. 

The order of nature study demanded by the laws of the 
mind should certainly begin with plants and animals and 
end with the physical and chemical laws and their rela- 
tion to mathematics. It is a psychological mistake to begin 
too early with physics. The mental equipment for botany 
and zoology and physical geography is much earlier at the 
disposal of the child. However, the teacher must not for- 
get how imperfect the child's ideas of time are. The tem- 
poral relations are those of which the teacher most easily 
speaks without awaking a corresponding reaction in the 
child. But the psychologist must still add a word of warn- 
ing in a direction which seems contrary to the present day 
beliefs. For a long while it has been the fashion to de- 
mand that nature study turn to nature herself and emanci- 
pate itself, from mere word knowledge. Yes, it has been 
this side of naturalistic instruction which has been most in- 
fluential over the whole school life. In every field the con- 
crete demonstration has been substituted for the word ex- 
planations of earlier times and the school books of our 
children are filled with maps, illustrations, and pictures of 
all kinds. We want the facts as they offer themselves to the 
senses, and not conceptions. No one can overlook the im- 
portance of such a demand; and yet the doubt must arise 
whether we have not carried this principle too far and 
whether it does not begin to interfere with more essential 
demands of true education. 

288 



THE HIGHER STUDIES 

If our psychological study has taught us anything, it is 
the fundamental relation between impression and expres- 
sion, between the sensory stimuli and the reactions in us. 
We saw that we do not perceive everything which comes to 
our senses, but that our perception is completely controlled 
by our tendencies and habits of reactions, our psycho-motor 
attitudes. It is, therefore, entirely misleading to think 
that we really perceive that which is offered to our senses. 
We perceive of it just as much as we are prepared to per- 
ceive, and our preparation depends upon our general con- 
ceptions which control our modes of motor behavior. We 
perceive just what we are seeking. Ever so many adults 
move in the midst of nature and do not see anything of the 
differences of the flowers or of the birds, and their interest 
is not in the least stirred up by the physical and chemical 
phenomena which surround them. Their education and 
their life work has not trained them in reacting on those 
differences, and that upon which they are not reacting does 
not exist for them. They would perceive this abundance 
of interesting material if they had the conceptional knowl- 
edge of the facts, inasmuch as those conceptions express 
attitudes. AYe can almost say that Ave have true percep- 
tions only of that of which we have gained conceptions; 
and thus it is putting the cart before the horse if we insist 
on the pupil's sense impressions and despise the develop- 
ment of conceptions, that is, of word knowledge. 

The overestimation of the perception as against the con- 
ception, is one of those superficialities of pedagogy which 
are in harmony with many features of our time, but which 
cannot be excused and certainly should not be supported 
by true psychology. Of course it is easier to stir up the in- 
voluntary attention of the child by things and pictures 
than by conceptions and explanations, but the lasting effect 

289 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

of those things and pictures will go just as far as well- 
developed conceptions have prepared their usefulness. 
This reaches its climax in the demonstration of the phy- 
sics lesson. That which is shown to the senses is really not 
at all that which is the real content of the experiment. 
The demonstration does not intend to show one particular 
happening, but the general law which underlies it, and the 
law as such in its generality can never be perceived, but 
only conceived. What is seen is accidental; to gain from 
it what is essential the spectator must abstract from each 
part of the impression, and this mental inhibition of all 
which is not really an expression of the law can be secured 
only under the guidance of general ideas. Thus demon- 
stration and conceptional thinking belong most intimately 
together. And where the equipment with neat instru- 
ments tempts the teacher too much to emphasize the showy 
part, naturalistic thinking must suffer and by that the 
demonstrations themselves become degraded to mere play. 

In contrast to the knowledge of nature, we bring to the 
child the knowledge of men in the study of history. If it 
is to come to its strongest educational effectiveness, it must 
really embody this psychical contrast to the nature study in 
every fiber. Too easily does the historical account itself 
become only a part of an external world of description and 
explanation after the pattern of natural science. It be- 
comes the story of human organisms imbedded in nature; 
and yet man as an organic being belongs in anthropology 
and not in history. The truest historical understanding 
does not set in until man is entirely understood as a sub- 
ject and not as an object. The historical being is not a 
thing which we perceive, but a will with which we can feel 
and which we can internally imitate in its decisions and its 
demands. To render the history of mankind as if it were 

290 



THE HIGHER STUDIES 

only a movement of visible personalities, an external grow- 
ing of nations, a migration over the continents, and a 
clashing on the battlefields, a coming and going by natural 
laws, in short, a history which is ultimately subordinated 
to the principles of natural science should have no place 
whatever in the school. Such an aspect is certainly of in- 
terest and value in itself and the student of sociology may 
follow it up. But the school-teacher must not yield to such 
ideas, or he will deprive history of all its educational quali- 
ties. 

The true history, the only kind which the greatest his- 
torians of all time have told, is the history of human will in 
its freedom. It is the history of personalities and their 
mutual will influence. The development of mankind is 
then no longer a meaningless series of chance happenings 
nor the haphazard products of external effects, but the re- 
sult of human intentions and human efforts. History be- 
comes a great drama, in which each role has its meaning 
and in which each step must be understood by grasping 
individual personalities in their agreement and disagree- 
ment. All the natural, geographical, and organic elements 
of the evolution are then only the material which the 
human will finds for its work, and the connections of hap- 
penings are not to be perceived like the causes and effects 
of a planned nature but as the successes and failures of a 
purposive mankind. Hence at every point the antithesis 
between nature and history must come to its fullest ten- 
sion. It is the difference between perceiving and willing, 
between substance and spirit, between the causal and the 
moral, between the thing and the man. 

Only if this interpretation is given to the material of 
the history lesson can the abundant value of this side of 
school life make itself felt. Then only does the past be- 

291 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

come living in the present. The will of those generations 
which have gone is felt as working in the life which sur- 
rounds us and which gives meaning to our own life. It 
is interesting and useful to know the flowers and birds 
around us; and yet it comes still nearer to the core of 
our personality to understand the customs and institutions, 
the national ideas and beliefs, the political and legal and 
social and cultural ideas by which we are connected with 
our fellow men. It sounds exaggerated to demand that 
just as the study of geography begins with the child's own 
village, the study of history ought to begin with the pres- 
ent and ought to work backward to the past. Practically 
this is not possible. The space relations in geography 
allow movement in every direction; the time relations of 
the history allow movement in the forward direction only. 
And yet the most immediate purpose of the historical 
study in the school is distinctly expressed in such a de- 
mand. The pupil becomes acquainted with the happenings 
of the past in order that they may illuminate the pres- 
ent and only that which can be understood in its relation 
to this end has fundamental value for the youth. 

Moreover, only such a purposive view of history works 
toward the future. It opens for everyone, be he the 
humblest, the vista of his own life tasks. Every single 
fate is now entering into that larger whole where it agrees 
or disagrees with the historical forces at work. It needs 
the feeling for this fundamental contrast between will 
and nature in order to fill the human mind with the 
desire to take up the fight for the ideal aims in freedom 
and responsibility. The laws of nature remind man of 
his smallness; the triumphs of history remind him of 
his greatness. Nor does he see only his personal task. 
He gains from history at the same time the inspiring 

292 



THE HIGHER STUDIES 

belief that this great process is really a progress and an 
unending development. He becomes filled with enthu- 
siasm for the great goals which mankind has fought to 
approach. But it is not only the gigantic forward move- 
ment of the whole stream of history which is essential; 
the life of every great personality will become an imme- 
diate source of enthusiastic emotion. Patriotism and 
loyalty, the world power of the deep thought of great 
thinkers, of the creative productions of brilliant artists, 
of the wisdom and strength of great statesmen, of the 
fervent ardor of great religious leaders will remold the 
young heart and prepare it for its highest endeavors. 

If all this is to be reached, the teacher must sub- 
ordinate the work throughout to such a purposive inter- 
pretation. Human individualities in their life blood and 
in the fullness of their will must always stand in the 
center. The form must be that of the narration which 
interprets the purposes, never that of the description 
which sticks to the external facts. Dates and names must 
be subordinated, the relations between human personali- 
ties must be in the foreground, in short the mental func- 
tion to which the history lesson should appeal is the 
sympathizing will which understands men by sharing their 
intentions. All the details of didactic method must be 
controlled by this principle and the self-activity of the 
pupil must be developed in rendering the narration out 
of his own understanding. Instead of cutting the events 
into those small pieces which too often prevail in the 
questions of the teacher, the tests of understanding ought 
rather to be sought by making the pupil search for the 
wider connections and see larger and larger groups of 
events in united will relation. 

This emphasis on the human factor by no means in- 
20 293 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

volves the sliding down to mere anecdotes. Just as the 
simple experiment on the teacher's desk is meant to 
demonstrate a law which holds over the endless universe, 
the life story which the teacher narrates of a historical 
figure is to express significantly the inexhaustible spiritual 
energies which penetrate the progress of historical man- 
kind. Everything trivial is therefore to be eliminated 
and the mere curiosity should not be appealed to, but the 
attitude of expectation, of inner tension relieved by moral 
satisfaction, ought to make the history lesson as vivid 
as an absorbing story. When young Americans are often 
blamed for the cheap, trivial, superficial view which they 
take of too many things, looking only to the immediate 
practical advantage and not seeing their life and the pub- 
lic problems in wide perspective, they ought to be blamed 
less than their history teachers who have missed their 
greatest opportunities. 

It is this spirit of historic continuity and of enthu- 
siasm which has secured the incomparable position of 
classical civilization in the higher education of the youth. 
The harmony and beauty of Greek life and Greek art and 
Greek poetry remain an eternal source of happiness and 
inspiration, but it is more important that the history of 
Greece and Rome is the foundation of our modem culture 
in almost every direction. To understand our own life, 
our own ideas of state and law, of world and human tasks, 
of knowledge and art and philosophy, we must turn to 
those nations which influenced most strongly the whole 
further development of mankind. But together with a 
historical understanding goes the suggestiveness of the 
Greek-Roman life for our own time. The simplicity of 
the human relations illuminates the complexity of our 
life. Much of all this can be reached without any ac- 

294 



THE HIGHEE STUDIES 

quaintance with the Greek and Latin languages; and yet 
the psychology of association and emotion easily explains 
the extreme heightening of the effect when Greek life and 
Greek beauty are interpreted in the immortal verses of 
Homer. 

At the same time the Latin and Greek grammar offer 
the formal training which in its logical discipline cannot 
be replaced by the study of modern languages. No one 
who understands the aim of true education will be scared 
by the cry that the language of Plato and of Tacitus is 
of no practical use to the young American. There cer- 
tainly are other languages which are more useful for the 
traveler, more necessary for foreign conversation, more 
practical for looking up the latest book on a subject, but 
there is none which to the same degree widens the per- 
spectives of the spiritual world, deepens the meaning of 
life, connects our individual work with the great stream 
of the history of mankind and thus makes us able and 
willing to realize the human ideals. Just the remoteness 
of the material adds to the intensity of the training; and 
on the other hand even the most indifferent sentence in 
which the grammar is learned will become living, if the 
right teacher teaches it, as he will always keep before the 
pupil's mind the decisive fact that it is a language which 
has made our civilization. The more a man is called by 
his vocation to be a leader in his sphere, the more the 
highest interests of the nation demand that he see the 
historical world in which he acts with reference to the 
decisive influences. It would therefore be shortsighted 
indeed to eliminate an intimate acquaintance with Greek 
or Latin from the formative years of those who seek the 
higher professions. 

All this in no way reduces the important cultural 

295 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

mission of the modern foreign languages. If they are well 
taught, their disciplinary value for the training not only 
of memory and attention but of reasoning, of imitation, 
of judgment, of automatic activity, of observation, truly 
lies in the direction of the best education. If they are 
poorly taught, the effect may be the opposite reenforcing 
the tendency to slipshod habits and loose thinking. Hence 
the responsibility of the language teacher for the develop- 
ment of mental power is large. Yet the humanistic value 
of a personal relation to the language and literature of 
another country remains even when the instruction lacks 
the disciplinary force. For our schools German and 
French alone are in question, but they are excellently 
suited to bring this humanistic enlargement of noble inter- 
ests. The graceful spirit and the brilliancy, the translu- 
cent clearness and originality, the wit and spontaneity, the 
logical connectedness and the sesthetic refinement of the 
French mind must be a most suggestive supplement to the 
traits of the American character. And with still greater 
immediacy and with still more intimate feeling of common 
origin and of common sympathies, the American youth 
must be brought nearer to his ideal achievement by a full 
contact with the culture of Germany. German idealism 
and German ^ thoroughness, German love of liberty and 
German loyalty, German belief in the value of truth and 
morality, German romanticism and German music, Ger- 
man philosophy and German educational ideals, all will 
awake latent energies in the American mind which too 
easily are left unexpressed and therefore unfelt in the rou- 
tine of the American's own national life. The German 
/ language at first offers a certain difficulty to the pupil on 
account of the complexity of its style. Its educational 
value is therefore the higher, because the mastery of the 

296 



THE HIGHER STUDIES 

German diction involves an ability of the mind to hold 
a much more composite structure as a mental imity. The 
organization of the German sentences is like the manifold- 
ness of lines in a Gothic cathedral, as against the sim- 
plicity of a classic temple. To feel the unity in such rich 
complexity means to develop the mind toward fuller 
ability. The psycho-motor apparatus becomes trained in 
richer and richer combinations. Again it may be insisted 
that the mere conversational usefulness is almost insig- 
nificant compared with such intrinsic gain. 

The modern foreign languages and the classical ones, 
but above all the mother tongue, cannot contribute their 
best gift to the education of the youth, if they do not carry 
to the receptive mind of the pupil the beauties of literature. 
If it is well interpreted, literature will bring logical and 
ethical stimulation; and yet no study of grammar and 
no training of memory and expression must overshadow 
the aesthetic influence. Of course literature does not stand 
alone there. The acquaintance with noble pictures and 
statues and especially the instruction in drawing and 
painting, to a certain degree in singing, have to cooperate 
in the development of the assthetic emotions which are so 
essential to true education. Perhaps they have never been 
more essential than for the education of young Americans 
in whose surroundings too many energies are antagonistic 
to the appreciation of pure beauty. The pioneer work 
which had to open and to utilize the land and to build up 
a great democracy absorbed the powers of the nation and 
left little leisure for the unfolding of the agsthetic sides of 
life. The religious traditions of puritanism have worked in 
practically the same direction. The aesthetic still stands too 
near to the superfluous or to the mere pleasurable amuse- 
ment and enjoyment. The eternal value of the beautiful 

297 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

and of the inner harmony is imperfectly grasped. Naked 
ugliness is still tolerated leniently when practical ends seem 
to be served. The devastated forests shout their accusa- 
tions not only against the practical shortsightedness but 
also against the sesthetic obtuseness of the nation. It is less 
important that the museums be filled with costly pictures 
than that the walls in every humble home show a develop- 
ment of aesthetic consciousness and that the masses seek 
their literary enjoyment less in melodramas, stories, and 
newspapers which are trivial, ugly, and inharmonious. 

The young generation needs a systematic education 
toward an instinctive feeling for inner harmony and bal- 
ance, inner symmetry and beautiful fitness. A nation which 
enjoys nature essentially as a place for sport, which enjoys 
music as a mere amusement, literature as an entertain- 
ment, even art as a means of ostentation, and considers 
the social life only as the sphere of moral relations has not 
as a whole really learned to value the message of beauty 
and therefore lacks most important elements of true edu- 
cation. The school alone can scatter the seed which finally 
will bring the harvest which we need, the sense of harmony 
and beauty and inner fitness in nature and art and life. 
The new strength of the sense for harmony and perfection 
will bring to life that inner repose and completeness which 
a noisy life of mere chasing after success, of rushing and 
pushing, can never yield. Truly the happy mission of the 
teacher is in no line more momentous for the best future 
of the country. 

Nothing is more important for the true aesthetic 
attitude than the suppression of every idea and association 
and impulse which leads away from the artistic object. 
The positive aim of the beautiful to be complete and per- 
fect and harmonious in itself can never be appreciated 

298 



THE HIGHEE STUDIES 

until the mind is trained to suppress everything which 
does not belong to the aesthetic manifold itself. If the 
ideas of causes and effects, of practical usefulness and 
scientific or historical truth are intruding, the beautiful 
work does not stand before us completed in itself. We 
must learn that there is no world outside of the frame 
of the painting and no further happening when the cur- 
tain has fallen. This inhibition involves a certain ab- 
straction. No one appreciates a marble statue who misses 
in it the color of flesh. Every lyric poem, every drama, 
every story which the pupil reads, must be a schooling in 
the abstraction and inhibition and in the thorough appre- 
ciation of the mutual adjustment of the parts of the perfect 
whole. The child must feel how rhythm and rh3ane and 
choice of words, metaphors and meanings, in the stanza 
belong together, how every element wills just what the 
others will and how this mutual support satisfies every 
demand which is raised by the poem. This feeling for 
the perfect satisfaction through the inner agreement of 
the parts of the experience is the most ideal education 
toward true happiness. 

The essence of the drawing instruction ought to be 
exactly of the same kind. It ought to develop in the 
child's mind the sense of inner balance and harmony. Of 
course the drawing instruction can serve a variety of pur- 
poses. Drawing from a copy or from objects in the sur- 
roundings disciplines the power of observation and of 
attention, can be an excellent schooling in accuracy and 
neatness and thus indirectly in thoroughness, and adds 
greatly to the child's ideas of space relations and perspec- 
tive. Such copying activity has been the object of careful 
psychological analysis in recent years. Many thousands of 
school children of various ages have been asked to draw 

299 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

definite things which are familiar to them, an animal, a 
carriage, a church, or to render a thing which they see 
before them, a cube or a table or a landscape; and both 
the extreme individual differences and the differences of 
age and of training have been carefully analyzed. We 
know that the youngest children do not draw at all what 
they have seen but that they give graphic expression to 
what they know concerning the thing, and thus combine 
in their picture elements which are never seen together. 
Moreover, we know that their interest belongs essentially 
to disconnected detail. Slowly the state is reached where 
real impressions are controlling the drawing more and 
more and where at least the outlines correspond to the 
appearance wliile the depth, the shadows, the foreshorten- 
ing are still neglected and falsified. 

The individual differences may also be of many kinds 
and certainly cannot be reduced to a mere greater and 
smaller mental power of drawing. Some children do not 
know how to see; they do not analyze. Some do not keep 
their attention on the visual impressions, some are unable 
to coordinate the movements with the optical experiences, 
some are unable to project the three-dimensional space into 
the plane, some are clumsy in their manual movements, 
and so on. The psychological experiment already has done 
much in analyzing those various factors and in studying 
how far the defects yield to training. Here again it is 
interesting to notice the role which the motor processes 
play. The space relations are the more easily expressed 
in the graphic record, the more clearly they are inter- 
preted by inner motor impulses. "Whoever sees the great 
formal value of this kind of drawing for the power of 
observation and manual skill and appreciates this training 
in accuracy and the practical usefulness of skillful draw- 

300 



THE HIGHER STUDIES 

ing, may feel tempted to seek the ideal in just such in- 
struction. And yet we must stick to the opinion that in 
the American school drawing instruction of this kind 
misses its greatest function, the education toward the 
aesthetic attitude. 

However important the child's ability to draw a cube 
in correct perspective, it is more important that he learn 
to distribute a few lines in a little frame in such a way 
that the impression is harmonious, from simple symmetry 
to richer forms of beautiful arrangements. Certainly the 
youngest children ought not to be led to a kind of im- 
pressionistic drawing, which in their case would mean only 
carelessness. Even the effort to bring out the character- 
istic elements would be contrary to the psychological state 
of the youngest pupils. Their attention hangs too much 
on the detail which interests them. And yet it is just this 
which they must learn to overcome as early as possible. 
They must be trained to see things without reference to 
practical usefulness, but only with reference to the har- 
monious appearance. Drawing instruction is not nature 
study and the aesthetic schooling in inhibition, abstraction, 
focusing, balancing, and appreciation, demands its own 
rights at the side of the intellectual education in our 
schoolroom. 

To a certain degree instruction in careful drawing 
falls in line with the purpose of manual training, which 
extends over the whole field of practical activities, includ- 
ing cooking and sewing for the girls and carpentering and 
work with metal and clay for the boys. There is no need 
of emphasizing, as in the case of sesthetic education, the 
importance of manual training for the young American. 
Yet it can well be understood that the introduction of 
manual training into the American schools has by no 

301 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

means found smooth paths. Much resistance in the best 
educational circles had to be overcome. Just those who 
seriously felt the ideal meaning of true education were 
instinctively afraid that such practical education of the 
hands might open the school doors too wide to the utili- 
tarian demands of a materialistic age. But seen from a 
higher point of view such a fear ought not to be influen- 
tial, as the best meaning of manual training does not lie 
in its immediate practical result. Our time fortunately 
recognizes the extreme importance of industrial educa- 
tion and at last begins to satisfy the needs of those who 
leave the schools and seek an opportunity to learn a trade 
in a thorough, systematic way. But this vocational as- 
pect ought not to begin before the industrial school is 
entered. 

The manual training ought to be decidedly an element 
of general education, and as such its formal value and its 
value for the understanding of nature and life ought not 
to be underestimated. It brings the child into that S3^m- 
pathy with the hard labor of the world which can be 
reached only by imitation and personal effort. But more 
important than such a social argument is the psychologi- 
cal one. Manual training is the most direct education of 
the motor system. It cannot reach that subtlety which 
the motor action of speaking, reading, and writing de- 
mands, but it adds to the training in accuracy, careful- 
ness and complexity of activity, the element of personal 
effort and strength. It is in this respect to a certain de- 
gree related to the physical training in play and sport, 
but its more systematic character and its greater exacti- 
tude give to it superior value. The true perspective of 
manual training is never gained as long as we consider it 
with reference to the later practical life. Not the future 

30^ 



THE HIGHER STUDIES 

artisan, but the future lawyer and banker and teacher 
will profit from it most. Its real background lies in the 
fact which we have emphasized on every occasion, the fact 
that the development of our motor functions is the funda- 
mental condition for the development of our inner life. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

THE SCHOOL ORGANIZATION 

A DISCUSSION of school organization even in its most 
essential aspects would demand a volume much larger than 
this, the end of which we are approaching. A study of 
the principles of psychology with reference to education 
cannot hope to answer, almost by the way, the abundance 
of questions which belong to the school as a social insti- 
tution. Problems of the financial budget, of public taxes, 
of political influences, of the cultural level of the com- 
munity, of social and religious conditions, of traditions 
and prejudices, of race and sex, of health and hygiene and 
many others stand in the foreground there. To be sure, 
not a few of them are intertwined with much, perhaps 
with too much practical psychology. To tell the story of 
the American school boards is not seldom to tell a psy- 
chological story of sad interest. Yet here we should not 
examine those conditions which the teacher finds as given 
facts, however much the true success of the teacher's work 
may contribute to the improvement of municipal school 
politics. 

Even such questions of organization as the size of the 
classes, while they are overburdened with psychological 
problems, belong ultimately to the budget. The too large 
class units which exhaust the mind of the teacher and 
make him unable to do his best, and which are most in- 

304 



THE SCHOOL ORGANIZATION 

jurious to the mental development of the pupil, are never 
sought by the school, but always forced on it by salary 
considerations. Nor is the teacher responsible for the 
unjustifiable delay in the entrance to school. Here, too, 
psychological factors are not lacking, but they belong to 
another field. It is the psychology of the parents which 
well deserves to be written with frankness and earnestness. 
Social conditions determine in the same way the number 
of years that the child can remain under the influence of 
the teacher. Even the lowest limit is very different under 
different state legislatures and social factors determine the 
number of school days which the child actually attends 
school. And, truly, much pitiable psychology is hidden 
behind the figure which tells that the average attendance 
of the school child in the United States during the year 
amounts merely to one hundred and seven days. 

Again the teacher finds conditions which are not of 
his own making, if the pupil's work has to be adjusted to 
the entrance requirements of higher institutions. The de- 
mands of the college have had a most immediate influence 
and not always a healthful one on the inner life of the 
secondary schools ; and to a certain degree this adjustment 
of the higher schools to the universities has worked back- 
ward on the higher grades of the elementary school. The 
high school has too often been obliged to organize the 
school primarily for those who intend to go on with edu- 
cational work and, therefore, to give less attention to the 
special needs of that overwhelming majority of pupils who 
leave the school for a practical occupation. Of course 
there can be no doubt, looking backward over the last 
decades, that the raising of the level of the entrance re- 
quirements for college throughout the land has been the 
strongest stimulus for the progress of the school. Much 

305 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

of the looseness and vagueness, of the inaccuracy and 
superficiality of the schools has disappeared under this 
pressure. The more the community demands that the 
professional schools for lawyer and physician, for teacher 
and minister and engineer require a college degree at the 
entrance, the more it may be hoped that the influence of 
tlie college will also work toward a concentration and con- 
densation of the school work. The man who has to pass 
through college and a professional school becomes too old 
for entering practical life, if the traditional time wasting 
in the schools goes on. Two years might easily be saved. 
On the borderland between social and psychological 
regions we find the difficult questions of coeducation in 
the school. The mental influence of the common instruc- 
tion must be important; and yet hardly anything has been 
done so far to examine and to analyze the situation with 
the means of modern psychology. The popular statements 
that coeducation strengthens the girls and softens the boys, 
or from hostile quarters that it feminizes the boys and 
takes the charm away from the girls, lead us no further. 
It needs experimental inquiry to fijid out the differences 
in the various mental activities with and without the 
presence of the other sex. Yet the social elements are 
prevalent here, too. It is already a social problem before 
us, if we see that the cultural studies, which naturally ap- 
peal to girls more than to boys, become almost repulsive 
to boys in coeducational schools and are monopolized by 
the girls. Still more have we social problems, if we see 
how the girls stay through the high school, where the boys 
end their school period with the elementary school. The 
immediate influence on the sexual relations seems strictly a 
psychological fact, and yet this, too, is closely linked with 
social conditions. We see that it may with certain groups 

306 



THE SCHOOL OEGANIZATIOIN" 

have the effect of relieving sexual tension and of making 
the sexes indifferent for each other, and that in other 
groups it may have the opposite effect of heightening and 
irritating the sexual consciousness by the steady contact. 
Both results may have further social consequences, for in- 
stance, on the inclination to enter into marriage. 

The question that might touch the teaching more di- 
rectly is that of the equality of studies for both sexes. We 
have dwelt repeatedly on traits characteristic of the minds 
of the boys and of the girls. We know the differentiation 
in the later life tasks. To what degree is an exact corre- 
spondence between the education of male and female pupils 
desirable or even possible? Psychological, ethical, and so- 
ciological arguments must cooperate here. It is certainly 
significant that the private schools offer separation of the 
sexes as their strongest inducement, just as the oldest col- 
leges of the land, like Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Princeton, 
and on the other side Br}Ti Mawr, Eadcliffe, Wellesley, 
Vassar, and Smith, are anti-coeducational. 

The institution of the private school also has its psycho- 
logical aspect. It is easy to attack the private school from 
political principles, perhaps even to denounce its snobbish- 
ness or its commercial character; and yet it is even easier 
to understand its important influence and the favor which 
it finds not merely for regrettable motives. The greater 
individualization of work, the smaller classes, the less 
marked differences of social standing, the regular life hab- 
its of the boarding school, the hygienic and the aesthetic 
conditions will continue to induce parents who can afford 
it to send their children to the private schools. They may 
hope that those of a special talent will not be held back by 
the large classes of average pupils and that those who are 
especially weak will neither be unduly pushed nor entirely 

307 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

neglected. And yet it may be very much doubted whether 
the tendency of well-to-do Americans to send their chil- 
dren away during their school time, and thus to withdraw 
them from the wholesome influence of the home, is not, 
after all, an undesirable tradition springing from selfish- 
ness. The responsibility of the boy and girl in the board- 
ing school is enlarged ; the pupil becomes a full member of 
a community earlier, but this advantage is reached only by 
highly artificial conditions. The most natural unit, that 
of the family, is neglected. 

AVe approach psychological problems more directly 
when we turn from the choice of the schools to the choice 
of the courses in the school. We have met this problem on 
various occasions and we recognize just here the intertwin- 
ing of psychological and ethical questions. Yet here, too, 
the social influences of most various character shade the 
situation, and not the least of them is the financial side. 
From the psychological standpoint it would appear much 
more desirable to have separate schools than to have vari- 
ous courses under the roof of the same school. The real 
dangers, to be sure, do not lie in the institution but in the 
motives. The temptation is too great to make choices for 
petty reasons. We have discussed the vocational aspect on 
the one side and the aspect of the personal taste on the 
other side. The fundamental fact remains that the gain 
in efficiency which might be secured by adjusting the school 
work to the personal interest is more than outbalanced by 
the loss of opportunity to train the power of voluntary at- 
tention. Moreover, the difference in the life tasks whicli 
demand a variety of preparation stands in no contradic- 
tion to the unity and community of the fundamental aims 
which demand the same schooling for all. As far ^s the 
primary school is concerned, the ground ought to be com- 

308 



THE SCHOOL ORGANIZATION 

mon in every respect. The safety and the progress of 
the state demand this community of instruction and in- 
spiration, of adjustment to the present and the past, of 
knowledge and mental technic. 

We come still nearer to j^sychological factors, if we look 
at the opposite side, the realm of discipline. Not the lik- 
ing of the pupil, but the stern will of the teacher controls 
the situation here. Its moral justification must lie both 
in the ideal direction of the teacher's will and in the edu- 
cational value for the individual pupil resulting from a 
period of serious discipline. This formative value of a se- 
vere regime would be gained even if the dominating will 
were adjusted to trivial ends, but this effect is greatly 
heightened and enriched by the superior character of the 
teacher's purpose. No doubt a flickering, shifting, unjust, 
moody, and selfish will in the teacher would even ruin the 
educational value of the disciplinary influence. The real 
training which is to be gained can be secured only if at 
the bottom of the pupil's mind an instinctive approval even 
of the rebuke and punishment is alive and working. Any 
inner resistance, not to the disagreeableness of the severe 
regime, but to its fairness and moral right, must interfere 
with the final success. All that w^e found in our analysis 
of the processes of inhibition and attention, of will and ef- 
fort, must throw light on this important problem. But 
what is needed is real discipline; a mere begging and per- 
suading is nothing but a counterfeit. And even that kind 
of subordination with which the team obeys its self-chosen 
captain in sport is a poor substitute. 

If a generation is to grow up which is to be its own 

master and not the slave of its involuntary attention, which 

is to apply thoroughness in its lifework and to respect the 

expert instead of giving free sweep to mediocrity, then au- 

21 309 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

thority and discipline are essential for the years of school 
life. Of course all this must not suggest the old-fashioned 
methods of boxing the ears and whipping, with the home 
supplement of being deprived of a meal. On the contrary, 
we no longer agree with the Greek poet that " the man who 
has not been whipped, did not get any education." The 
personality which is to be educated is not the physical or- 
ganism with its animal fear of bodily pain and deprivation. 
The personality which is to be made able and willing to 
help toward the realization of the ideal purposes of man- 
kind is the subject whose pleasure and displeasure depends 
upon its higher satisfactions and dissatisfactions. The feel- 
ing of honor and self-respect must be the medium of pun- 
ishment and reward, as soon as the pupil has reached an 
age in which these more complex feelings have found their 
development. But whatever the form of the intrusion into 
the sphere of the personality, it must be unyielding and 
rigid, if it is to create the necessary inhibitions. 

Much of that regime must be negative. It must involve 
an energetic suppression of bad mental impulses and hab- 
its, and a far-reaching exclusion of vicious influences. Yet 
the negative as well as the positive factors demand their 
reasonable and wise limitations. The exclusion of mental 
infection must not lead to a real isolation of the pupil. A 
child under steady supervision loses his chance to overcome 
the impulse, to resist the temptation. The time must come 
when the artificial world of supervision has to be left and 
the entrance into practical life made. The contrast will be 
too sharp, the danger of a misuse of freedom by mere re- 
action psychologically too near, if the educational period 
is held free from temptation and responsibilities. In the 
same way there can easily be too much petty regulation and 
arbitrary prescription. Even the training in accuracy and 

310 



THE SCHOOL ORGANIZATION 

exactitude does not contradict a far-reaching freedom in 
the work. The child must never feel himself to be a 
mere machine. Least of all would it be wise to over- 
flood the pupil with commands not to do one thing or 
another. In studying the motor powers of ideas we saw 
that every vivid idea has a tendency to go over into action. 
To forbid an action of which the pupil may hardly have 
thought, means to call it forcibly to his mind, and the de- 
sire to realize it may be created just through this drawing 
of the attention to the act and may ultimately be stronger 
than the inhibition which resulted from the word of warn- 
ing or even threatening. It is this psychological element 
which so strongly suggests that the influence of education 
ought to move in positive prescriptions. They are most 
forcibly supported by the example of the teacher and the 
contact with s3Tnpathetic fellows. 

To give to the school work the value of discipline 
means to avoid the instruction becoming too eas}^, but it 
does not mean that the school should not make its best ef- 
fort to bring the work under the most favorable conditions 
for learning and training. On the contrary, much saving 
of time and much gaining in efficiency will be attained if 
the highest possible attention is given to the schemes of in- 
struction in order to waste no energy and to reach every 
desirable end by the straightest road. This is a field in 
which psychology is sovereign. Everything which we re- 
ported concerning memory and attention, effort and judg- 
ment, apperception and will, suggestion and imitation, 
fatigue and individual differences deserves consideration 
here. The influence of training, of habit, of stimulus, of 
inner impulse, of fatigue, of recreation, on the amount of 
successful work must be familiar to the teacher. The dif- 
ference of psychological working types of pupils, the curves 

311 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

of their fatigue, the differences between those who do their 
best at the beginning and those who climb slowly to the 
highest point of their achievement must not be neglected. 
The relation between learning and attention, the influence 
of repetition and rhythm, of expression and division of 
material on the economy of learning becomes fundamental 
here. 

This interest goes far beyond the general conditions 
which are important for every kind of school work and 
turns to the technic of instruction in the particular field. 
We saw how individual differences and laws of motor ac- 
tivity and inhibition, of habit formation and memory and 
attention must determine the acquisition of the material in 
the learning of history or arithmetic or language or draw- 
ing. Moreover, the endeavor to secure the greatest efficiency 
of instruction and education through the fullest considera- 
tion of the psychological factors will involve a general hy- 
giene of mental work. No true school success can be bought 
by the psychophysical exhaustion of the pupil. We have 
studied the experimental means by which fatigue of the 
individual pupil and of whole classes may be measured and 
may be differentiated. While the economy of mental 
restoration in the school child is still studied by far too 
little, it is already certain that the exact experiment of the 
psychological laboratory is the only safe way toward prog- 
ress in this entire group of questions. So far the schools 
have profited from this development too little. They are 
hardly aware how many apparently antagonistic factors en- 
ter into the situation. A mere interruption by recess is, of 
course, no sufficient solution. Every interruption destroys 
the adaptation which is secured by a certain continuity of 
work. The interrujDtion is, therefore, a period for gaining 
new power and yet at the same time a period for losing 

312 



THE SCHOOL ORGANIZATION 

power by loss of adaptation. Psychological studies must 
show where the right middle way lies, in order to win the 
best success. The haphazard methods which still prevail 
are certainly not in keeping with the progress of psychol- 
ogy. It must not be forgotten that all these problems are 
of a kind in which an automatic regulation is not to be 
hoped for. Mistakes and even sins against the laws of 
mental work may go on uncorrected because those who 
blunder are not those who directly suffer. 

Of course the hygiene of mental work also involves all 
forms of play and games. It seems that it is not the school 
itself but rather the college with its increasing indulgence 
to the misuse of collegiate sport which has made the games 
a serious pedagogic problem even in the school time. The 
relation of sport to education has certainly become a na- 
tional question, that is, a question which must be solved 
rightly or a serious harm to the life of the nation is immi- 
nent. And in this complex difficulty the fate of the high 
school sport will necessarily be determined by the develop- 
ment of the college situation. A baseball or a football in- 
terest which becomes hysterical is certainly a contagious 
school disease. Above all, it distorts the view of the value 
of the boys and puts emphasis where it does not belong. 
On the other hand, a healthy atmosphere of play will con- 
tribute much to the wholesome growth of mind and body. 

But there is another demand which refers strictly to the 
school and primarily to the elementary school: the play of 
the American child appeals too little to the imagination. 
It is excellent as movement play and trains well the sense 
of organized and concerted action, of quick response and 
energetic eifort and skill. But compared with the ways in 
which children of the European continent enjoy themselves, 
there is a marked absence of imaginative activity. The 

313 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

games are colorless ; there is too little effort to imitate in a 
playing way the life of the surroundings and to project the 
hopes and wishes into the youthful intercourse, as far as 
boys are concerned. They prepare too early for the role 
of the American man who leaves the cultural interests to 
the women of the land and gives his energies only to the 
struggles of life. Imagination, emotion, and aesthetic sense 
need no less training than intellect and action, and well- 
guided play is in this sphere as in every other an impor- 
tant method of preparing for the game of the social world. 

Both at work and at play the school can do only a part ; 
another part belongs to the influence of the home. How 
far the home should be used for a part of the regular school 
work may be open to discussion. The home study must be 
regulated with careful adjustment to social conditions. 
Individual psychological differences also deserve considera- 
tion. Certain children simply do not do their work faith- 
fully, if they are left alone; others are unable to do work 
under the disturbing distraction of a noisy or a disorderly 
home. The failure soon becomes noticeable. Yet these 
facts suggest a much more exact and systematic inquiry. 
Moreover, independent of such individual differences, there 
remain strong average influences which make home work 
and class work unequal. The consciousness of doing the 
same work together with a large number of others has in 
some respects a stimulating and in certain other respects 
an inhibiting influence. The effect of these conditions has 
recently been brought under experimental investigation, 
but the results are so far not suflSciently clear and uniform 
to allow definite conclusions. 

There can be no doubt that the psychological relation of 
the home to the school is only to a small degree covered by 
the question whether the work is to be written and learned 

314 



THE SCHOOL OEGANIZATION 

in the schoolroom or at home. The parental spirit and the 
attitude of the family toward the school is by far more es- 
sential. It even enters with full vigor into the boarding 
school where the child may not see the parents for three 
quarters of the year. Whether the child feels that the 
family is in sympathy and pays homage to the authority of 
the teacher or whether he knows that the school is treated 
at home as a negligible quantity makes a world of differ- 
ence. It is true the average American is proud of the edu- 
cational system of the country and believes in good schools, 
but for him that is a generality more fit for a political dis- 
cussion than for the control of his personal attitude in the 
particular case of his own children. The same average 
American treats the school of his boys and girls as a bore 
and a burden and thoughtlessly and almost recklessly does 
his best to undermine in his children the respect for the 
authority of the teacher. The school will never come to 
its highest efficiency if the parents do not cooperate with it 
faithfully, if a bad mark in school is not a depressing dis- 
comfort for the whole family and a good mark in school a 
joyful inspiration to the home. We have discussed the psy- 
chology of autosuggestion. This feeling of unity between 
school and home is one of the strongest autosuggestive in- 
fluences on the mind of the pupil. Its strength means 
progress ; its absence poor work. Good schools are not built 
from the taxes which the parepts pay, but much more from 
the respect for the teacher which they implant in the minds 
of their children. 



CHAPTER XXIX 



THE TEACHER 



The most important factor in scliool work is, after all, 
the teacher. Psychological problems crystallize about him 
plentifully. His relation to the pupil and the effect which 
he produces on the pupil's mind and, on the other hand, 
his own mental growth and training, the development of 
his own mental achievements as teacher, all may be ana- 
lyzed and measured and explained and reenforced by care- 
ful attention to the underlying psychological principles. Yet 
just that side of the teacher which is most important for his 
success would seem most to elude the exact analysis. It is 
not his knowledge, not his energy and industry nor his 
skill nor his practice ; it is essentially an educational enthu- 
siasm which makes the teacher's personality. A teacher 
who does not feel the beauty and the sacredness of his mis- 
sion and who has entered the school, not because his heart 
was full of the desire to teach the youth, but just to have a 
job and to earn a living, is doing harm to the pupils and 
greater harm to himself. 

Whether the task is to show to the little ones the first 
elements of this curious world or to make the grown-up 
ones ready to take up the struggle of the world, it will be 
the inner warmth of the teacher which decides whether 
the instruction will be a success or a failure. For the 
teacher at his desk it holds as true as for the minister in 
the pulpit, that without belief in his heart, he is doomed. 

316 



THE TEACHER 

No eloquence, no technic, no trick can deceive that most 
sensitive organ, the mind of a school child. If that sug- 
gestive element is lacking, the instruction may drag along 
over most interesting ground; and yet the pupils follow 
without faith and therefore, without spontaneity. And if 
the enthusiasm has touched the soul, everything will be- 
come living and inspiring. The psychological condition is ? 
a combination of suggestion and imitation. This will? 
reach its highest point when the enthu siasm for the func- 
tion of teaching goes together with an enthusiasm for the 
subject matter taught. There is no need of a distorted per- 
spective. It is not necessary to teach the irregular verbs 
as if they were the center of the intellectual universe. 
Everything may remain in its right place and yet be full of 
significance and be interpreted in such a way that the im- 
portance of the whole of knowledge is felt in the smallest 
part. The pupil believes in the value of the subject mat- 
ter because the suggestiveness of the teacher's enthusiasm 
makes him see it with new eyes. The teacher, of course, 
is interested in the particular material because he sees it in 
manifold relations to wider problems. His real interest be- 
longs to that which he cannot bring before the pupil, but 
which in his own mind forms the background of those ele- 
ments. On the other hand, the pupil's interest is absorbed 
because his interest in the enthusiastic teacher is projected 
into the indifferent material taught. 

This reaches its fullest expansion only when the teach- 
er's idealism does not turn merely to the content of in- 
struction and to the task of teaching, but irradiates in 
every direction. There are windows in every class room; 
the right teacher will look out from his desk into the wide 
world, into the turmoil of men, into the joys and duties of 
life, and everywhere it will be felt whether he sees things 

317 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHEE 

in the narrow, selfish aspect, or with a heart that believes 
in the eternal values. Everything, indeed, may be looked 
on in a trivial way or in a way full of belief. The beauties 
of nature and art become for the one mere pleasures of 
sense, while to the other they are sources of true inspiration 
endlessly valuable in their inner perfection. The harmony 
of men is for the one only a comfortable condition with 
the least possible disturbance, for the other an absolute 
good. Progress and even morality are for the one merely 
means of satisfaction to gratify human desires, for the 
other the realization of an ideal which gives meaning to 
life and eternal worth to every personality. And knowl- 
edge, too, is for the one only a practical tool helpful in 
putting through a deal and in getting a good job and for 
the other a joyful participation in truth and lasting wis- 
^, dom. Such enthusiastic belief in the value of the human 
ideals is the best which the child can gain at the feet of the 
teacher. In a higher sense it is really the most useful 
thing which can be learned in a class room, and if it is 
glowing in the teacher's soul, there will be no child who 
will not feel its warmth. 

This idealistic disposition of the teacher is, psycho- 
logically speaking, favored by a certain inborn emotional 
temperament. And yet anyone can acquire it. For most 
people it is largely the result of imitation and of narrow- 
minded influences that they are inclined to take a petty 
shallow view of the world. If ever their eyes are opened, 
the vision of idealism becomes a life reality to them. Who- 
ever has entered upon the career of a teacher can still se- 
cure this wider vista. It will bring harmony to his inner 
striving. His mind will resound, his patience will be- 
come meaningful, his humor will become happiness, his 
daily work will become a real calling inexhaustible in its 

318 



THE TEACHER 

opportunities. As soon as his belief in the teacher's mis- 
sion has really penetrated the whole school work, the fulfil- 
ment of the task becomes in itself the best reward. The 
traditional complaint about the meager salaries of the 
teachers disappears with such a change of inner attitude. 
The teacher who goes into teaching for the money in it is 
certainly on the wrong road. He will find little in it and 
he does not deserve even the little which he may find. It 
is a fundamental law of economy that the inner rewards 
of a man's work are accepted as substitutes for the exter- 
nal ones. The more honor and respect belongs to a career, 
the more it is blessed by the dignity of ideal fulfillment, 
the more it can abstract from the standards of the market. 
Every member of the President's cabinet in Washington 
could earn five times more if he preferred a lucrative pro- 
fession ; and the same holds true of the leading scholars of 
the great universities, or of the great artists. Yet prob- 
ably no one of them would exchange his position for 
another place. The life devoted to statesmanship, to the 
advance of truth, to the creation of beauty, is an incom- 
parable premium in itself. And where others need rich" 
income to secure a social importance by their expenditure, 
this end is reached by those who live to ideal pursuits 
through the mere significance of their unselfish work. 

Pitiable is the community which does not respect the 
educators of the youth sufficiently to allow them a material 
life which keeps them free from wants and pressure. But 
if this is secured, the teacher should be the last to complain 
that his life lacks reward and satisfaction. His place in 
the community is one of dignity, his daily work gives him 
the joy of the contact with open-minded youth whose grati- 
tude will accompany him through life. He spreads truth, 
he kindles enthusiasm he serves no arbitrary master but 

319 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

the ideals of his heart. In this light it is, indeed, a sad 
experience to see the disappearance of men from the school- 
teacher's career. The statistics report that in 1880 forty- 
three per cent of the teachers in the public schools of the 
whole country were men, in 1890 thirty-five per cent, in 
1900 thirty per cent, in 1907 twenty-two per cent. But 
even this twent3^-two per cent is pushed westward and still 
more southward. In Massachusetts, for instance, the figure 
has already decreased to eight per cent, in Connecticut to 
seven per cent. 

No one can overlook the natural disposition of the 
women for the teacher's calling. The sympathy and the 
patience, the friendliness and the humor, the consideration 
and the industry of the women have brought many of the 
noblest teachers' qualities into numberless class rooms be- 
tween the Atlantic and the Pacific. And yet we should 
not neglect the dangers which are involved in this elimi- 
nation of the male element. To put the education of boys 
in the years in which their manhood is developing, essen- 
tially into the hands of women cannot be without danger to 
the best interests of the community. It is a onesidedness 
which works against the fullest efficiency of the public 
! school ; and it is one of the most essential duties of the 
(American school to win back the man teacher. Yet is 
there any doubt possible for those who stand near to the 
practical situation and know the essential factors that the 
financial condition has the greatest share in the responsi- 
bility for this emasculation of the school? The man has 
turned to better pa3dng callings; the woman has remained 
in school because few other kinds of work offer to her bet- 
ter financial reward. Moreover, the woman has not only 
fewer chances from which to choose, but can get along with 
a smaller income because, unlike the man, she has not the 

320 



THE TEACHEE 

responsibility for the expenses of a household. That fac- 
tor which for the true teacher ought to be the least impor- 
;ant one has thus practically reshaped the whole educational 
situation, has expelled the man, has given the teaching of 
the youth into the hands of the lowest bidder. All this ul- 
timately means that the full significance of the teacher's 
calling, the glorious inner rewards, his noble life work, the 
beauty and the dignity and the eternal worth of his mission 
are stil) misunderstood and hardly realized in the na- 
tional commonwealth. 

The personality and attitude are much but they are not 
all. The teacher must master the subject matter of his 
instruction — it may be knowledge to be acquired; it may 
oe skill in which to be trained. There is no doubt that the 
3ducational system of the country is badly hampered by 
;the insufficient preparation of the teachers. Their train- 
; ing is often inadequate and not seldom in the midst of their , 
'routine practice they sink below the level of knowledge , 
at which they stood in their first teaching year. The 
teacher must draw from a full spring. It is not enough 
that he know what he wants the pupils to know and that 
:ie hastily supply himself in the evening with a reserve fund 
, to answer the questions of the next morning. He alone can 
[give information in an interesting way who might give a 
hundred times more than he has a chance to give. If a 
I teacher interprets a simple poem, it makes all the difference 
'whether he is versed in the whole literature or not; and 
^his nature study may be confined to the elements in the 
class room and yet those elements demand that wide per- 
ispectives of real modern science be open before his eyes. 
jThe fuller his reservoir, the more he will be independent . 
[of the text-book and will brighten the lesson by putting the y 
'accent on the spoken word. 

321 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

Surely to-day no one ought to be admitted as teacher to 
a high school who has not passed through a respectable col- 
lege with a serious effort to specialize in the subject mat- 
ter which he teaches. But even this cannot be the last 
demand. The community must press on. After all, the 
college is not the place for scholarly specialization, but for 
a broad foundation of general culture. And this general 
culture is needed in every class room of the high school. 
The specialization should set in during some years in the 
graduate school. The college should only make a begin- 
ning of such focusing in professional knowledge. The ideal 
high school teacher needs two years of graduate study in 
addition to a good college education. In a corresponding 
way the community must insist on a steady raising of the 
level for the preparation of the elementary school teacher. 
But certainly the scholarly supply and training must not 
end with the academic years. The teacher of mathematics 
cannot afford to let any year pass without reading a num- 
ber of good new books on the mathematical field and fol- 
lowing one or another mathematical journal. 

This must not be misunderstood. It would be mis- 
leading to hold before the school-teacher the goal of origi- 
nal research. Work toward real advancement of knowledge 
is the proper sphere of the college teacher and is the very 
essence of the life of any teacher in the graduate school. 
It is in the interest of both parties, the school-teacher and 
the university teacher, if a demarcation line between the 
demands on the one and the other is acknowledged. They 
represent two different professions, each of equal impor- 
tance and dignity, but each really different from the other. 
The school ought not to be a cheap edition of a college and 
the college ought not to be only a more difficult school. In 
itself, of course, it is not impossible that one or another 

322 



THE TEACHER 

school-teacher may devote his leisure hours to a favorite 
problem and contribute to its solution. But such work does 
not belong to his professional task and is not needed to give 
to his teaching a background of high interest. The high 
school-teacher^s greatest scientific ambitions ought to lead 
him to a real familiarity with the best thought in his field, 
just as the elementary school-teacher ought to aim toward 
the never-ending development of his broad general edu- 
cation. With such a background no work in the class room 
can become drudgery and no repetition of the course from 
year to year can make the mind narrow and dissatisfied. 
The teacher will win the love and the respect of the com-) 
munity and make the school an intellectual and emotional! 
center of the highest ideal efforts in the common life. 
The more this irradiation of true culture from the school 
faculty is felt, the more the whole community will stand 
behind the school and will support it with all the means 
at its disposal. 

■ It is a much-discussed question to what extent psycho- 
logical and educational studies ought to enter into this 
scholarly curriculum of the teacher. The debate has not 
always been carried on with fairness. Sometimes even bit- 
terness has entered into the struggle of opinion. As far as 
the educational studies are concerned, just the best friends 
of the school saw too clearly the shortcomings of many 
teachers in the scholarly preparation for their special sub- 
ject matter. The teacher who has not learned his Latin 
suflSciently well to master it with real accuracy and thor- 
oughness may too easily be tempted to substitute a certain 
educational technic of teaching Latin for the desirable 
progress in his Latin studies. The fear prevailed that the 
thorough study of methods might become a method of es- 
caping thorough study. On the other hand, the advocates 

323 



PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHER 

of pedagogy pointed out with full right that they certainly 
encouraged the serious scholarly efforts and that their ad- 
ditional instruction especially when it was coupled with 
practical training, with historical retrospects and psycho- 
logical discussion, must lead to a much richer fructifica- 
tion. Instead of making the children victims of clumsy 
experiments, the instruction would be at once brought into 
paths which have been tried and tested. On the whole the 
mood nowadays has become more tolerant on both sides and 
the importance of the educational studies has been the more 
acknowledged, the more they absorbed the results of educa- 
tional psychology. 

With regard to psychology the conflict seemed even 
sharper. The one party insisted that the analytic work of 
the psychologist can never do justice to the living reality of 
the class room and that the explanation of the mental facts 
can never tell us in what direction we ought to aim. More- 
over, the abundance of technical difficulties were empha- 
sized, the impossibility of applying exact psychological 
standards to the class room, the danger which a mere play- 
ing with psychology might bring to the teacher who needs 
broader education and above all, how much this analyzing 
and explaining attitude might interfere with the love and 
the tact, the sympathy and the interest in which the true 
teacher naively expresses his care for the pupils. The other 
party pointed to the beginnings of a really exact pedagogi- 
cal psychology with all the means of the modern laboratory 
and emphasized that it would be absurd to ignore these 
newly won facts and laws which might be of practical serv- 
ice. The intensity of this conflict has decreased in recent 
years still more than that with regard to the educational 
studies. 

The most important help toward the solution was the 

324 



THE TEACHER 

rapid progress of this new experimental science. As long 
as the pedagogical experiments were only accidental by- 
products of general psychology, the suspicion and hesita- 
tion were justifiable and necessary. But since the pedagog- 
ical experiments in psychology have become an organized 
scientific achievement, the dangers have been greatly de- 
creased and the point has been reached which the conserv- 
ative party had hoped for. On the other hand, even the 
most radical friends of educational psychology begin to see 
the justice of the demand that psychology be supplemented 
by ethical inquiry. They begin to recognize that the re-] 
lations between psychology and life are complex and cannot! 
be expressed by a mere psychological explanation of the! 
human functions. What was needed was a clean separa- 
tion between the causal aspect of life which is, indeed, that 
of the psychologist, and the purposive aspect of life by 
which alone the meaning and aim of all human doing, and 
of the human ideals can be understood. The more each, 
party has in this way recognized the relative right of the 
other, the more the time has approached to unify this man- 
ifoldness of efforts in the service of the serious teacher. 
Now it has become evident that the study of the psychologi- 
cal means can become helpful only when the aims of the 
teacher have been determined by the independent ethical 
inquiry of the philosopher. But as soon as these ends are 
determined, the richer and richer results of the experi- 
mental psychologist must be brought to the teacher, so 
that he may know and choose the means which are helpful 
in the fulfillment of his ideal aim. The time seems ripe 
for such higher unity. May this book help to bring us 
nearer to the day when such harmony of ethics and psychol- 
ogy becomes a living and joyful power in the happy heart 
of every true teacher ! 

83 325 



^%^ 



INDEX 



Abnormal, 108, 181, 208. 
Absolute, 52, 62. 
Abstraction, 27. 
Action, 115, 149, 183, 191, 198, 

262, 311. 
Adaptation, 117. 
Adolescence, 5. 
Affections, 101. 
Aims, 1, 21, 81, 237. 
Alphabet, 278. 
Anecdotes, 294. 
Apperception, 128, 131, 257. 
Applied psychology, 90, 95. 
Arithmetic, 283. 
Art, 51, 58, 205, 246. 
Association, 118, 138, 148, 152, 

155, 219. 
Atoms, 28, 56. 
Attendance, 305. 
Attention, 15, 118, 157, 161, 170, 

186, 217, 221, 265, 289. 
Attitude, 83. 
Authority, 309. 
Autosuggestion, 211, 315. 

Beauty, 51, 58, 205, 297, 318. 

Biology, 24, 112. 

Body, 102. 

Brain, 93, 99, 103, 112, 187. 

Budget, 304. 



Carelessness, 209, 255. 

Causal, 38, 105. 

Chain reaction, 223. 

Child, 5, 22, 71, 128, 133, 143, 
154, 168, 174, 180, 187, 191, 
202, 209, 213, 255, 266. 

Choice of courses, 268, 308. 

Classes, 146. 

Clearness, 159. 

Coeducation, 306. 

College, 267, 305, 307, 322. 

Combination, 221. 

Commerce, 69. 

Common sense, 8. 

Comprehension, 257. 

Concentration, 260. 

Conception, 289. 

Confidence, 210. 

Consciousness, 31. 

Conservation, 104, 248. 

Consistency, 245. 

Constellation, 139. 

Correlation, 217, 261. 

Crime, 95. 

Culture, 45. 

Curriculum, 237, 253, 258. 

Decision, 184. 
Defects, 129, 228. 
Description, 29. 



327 



INDEX 



Desires, 17. 

Development, 24, 133, 248. 
Discharge, 120. 
Discipline, 18, 309. 
Dislike, 196. 
Drawing, 129, 297, 299. 
Drudgery, 17, 265, 323. 
Duty, 74, 188, 269. 

Economy, 256, 261, 264. 
Education, 10, 64, 233, 253, 310, 

323. 
Effort, 16, 172. 
Electives, 268. 
Elementary studies, 271. 
Elements, 100. 
Emotion, 201, 205, 263. 
English, 274, 282. 
Enthusiasm, 75, 244, 247, 316. 
Eternal, 55, 244, 318. 
Ethics, 22, 34. 
Exception, 194. 
Exhaustion, 225. 
Expectation, 149. 
Experience, 27, 56, 115. 
Experiment, 91, 132, 140, 152, 

155, 164, 168, 180, 192, 215, 

271, 276, 281, 324. 
Explanation, 105. 
Europe, 256, 282. 

Faculties, 99. 
Fatigue, 161, 223, 312. 
Feeble-minded, 189, 228. 
Feeling, 196, 199. 
Fluctuation, 164. 
Foreign languages, 296. 
Formal knowledge, 238. 
Freedom, 108. 



French, 296. 
Friendship, 58. 

Genius, 13. 
German, 282, 296. 
Greek, 294. 
Gymnastics, 242. 

Habit, 183, 194, 226. 
Handwriting, 218, 281. 
Happiness, 58, 67, 246. 
Harmony, 245, 298, 301. 
Health, 95. 
Higher studies, 286. 
History, 38, 238, 290, 292. 
Home, 237, 257, 308, 314. 
Hypnotism, 178. 
Hysteria, 208. 

Ideal, 6, 54, 65, 235, 244, 247, 

251, 317. 
Ideas, 48, 119, 153, 277, 287. 
Ideational types, 145. 
Imagination, 135, 148, 150, 186, 

313. 
Imbeciles, 227. 
Imitation, 10, 172, 317. 
Improvement, 12. 
Impulse, 172, 184, 278. 
Inaccuracy, 17. 
Inclination, 266. 
Individual differences, 71, 133, 

146, 153, 168, 179, 188, 192, 

206, 212, 226, 266, 285, 300, 

314. 
Industry, 69. 

Inhibition, 160, 209, 299, 311. 
Inspiration, 244, 263, 287. 
Interest, 16, 265, 269. 



328 



INDEX 



Kindergarten, 267. 
Knowledge, 149, 235, 237. 

Labor, 68. 

Laboratory, 92, 141, 216, 272, 

312. 
Language, 239, 261, 273, 295. 
Latin, 295. 
Learning, 11, 140. 
Life, 8, 29, 112. 
Literature, 58, 247, 297. 
Logic, 57. 
Loyalty, 248. 

Manual training, 190, 241, 263, 

301. 
Mathematics, 57, 238. 
Medicine, 96. 
Memory, 11, 137, 219. 
Mind, 79. 

Morality, 59, 66, 249. 
Motor, 116, 120, 130, 138, 159, 

167, 189, 203, 281, 302. 
Movement, 172, 282. 
Muscles, 114. 
Music, 247. 

Nature study, 262, 286, 288. 
Nerves, 115, 126. 
Number, 283. 

Objects, 28, 35, 48. 
Opposite, 120. 
Organization, 304. 
Originality, 176, 220. 

Pain, 196. 
Parallelism, 106. 
Perception, 128, 289. 



Perfection, 246. 
Perseverance, 117. 
Personality, 175, 293. 
Philosophy, 8. 
Physical exercise, 189. 
Physics, 289. 
Physiology, 91. 
Play, 267, 313. 
Pleasure, 41, 47, 67, 199. 
Pragmatism, 51. 
Preferences, 27. 
Private school, 256, 307. 
Progress, 24, 51, 193, 247. 
Psychology, 5, 31, 82, 86, 105, 

215, 323. 
Psychophysical, 106. 
Punishment, 310. 

Reaction, 114, 120, 126, 158, 199, 

206, 222. 
Reading, 262, 275. 
Reality, 27. 
Recess, 312. 
Recognition, 277. 
Reflex, 123. 
Repetition, 141, 192. 
Reproduction, 137, 148. 
Research, 322. 
Resistance, 122. 
Retaining, 144. 
Retarded children, 228. 
Rewards, 319. 

Salary, 319. 

Satisfaction, 41. 

Scholarship, 87. 

School, 70, 86, 231, 254, 257, 

265, 269, 304, 315, 322. 
Science, 24, 27. 



329 



INDEX 



Sensations, 101, 128, 196. 

Sense organs, 114. 

Sexes, 133, 306. 

Slang, 274. 

Social conditions, 255, 306, 314. 

Sociology, 5, 230, 234, 255. 

Spelling, 281. 

Sport, 313. 

Steadiness, 202. 

Stereoscope, 130. 

Stubbornness, 188. 

Success, 42. 

Suggestibility, 178. 

Suggestion, 172, 317. 

Superficiality, 283. 

Suppression, 158. 

Talent, 213, 266. 

Teacher, 3, 44, 47, 65, 74, 86, 
163, 166, 177, 203, 209, 227, 
251, 274, 294, 304, 309, 316, 
319. 



Tests, 217, 219. 

Thoroughness, 265. 

Training, 129, 144, 167, 235, 240. 

Truth, 50, 56, 245. 

Types, 134, 145, 154, 169, 222. 



Understanding, 109. 
University, 267. 
Usefulness, 259. 

Valuation, 12, 24. 

Values, 47, 52, 60, 244, 249, 318. 

Vividness, 159. 

Vocation, 258, 268, 295, 302. 

Waste, 257. 

Will, 28, 50, 123, 183, 291. 

AVord, 150, 183, 273, 277, 288. 

World, 55, 61. 

Writing, 279. 



(1) 



THE END 



UTERATURES OF THE WORLD* 

Edited by EDMUND GOSSE, 
Hon. M.A. of Trinity College, Cambridge. 



Modern English Literature. 

By Edmund Gosse, LL.D. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

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AN IMPORTANT EDUCATIONAL HISTORY. 



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UTERATURES OF THE WORLD. 

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KO 44 



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